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YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


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YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY 


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ELEANOR TALBOT KINKEAD, 

o 

AUTHOR OF 

“ ‘Gainst Wind and Tide.” 


“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; 
’Pray you, love, remember.” — Hamlet. 


CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, 


t OF 

bight * 

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(SIM* 


Copyright, 1895, by Rand, McNally & Co. 




Young Greer of Kentucky. 


i. 

J une in Kentucky and the meadows 
all abloom! The tall blue-grass with 
its feathery coronal shyly bent to the 
summer breeze — to listen to some 
wondrous tale of violet and clover, or 
of mystic whisperings heard amid the 
rustling corn. Piercing even the dense 
forests of oak and elm, walnut and 
maple, over all the brilliant sunlight 
flashed with a lavish splendor, waking 
into fruit and flower every growing 
thing of earth, and falling like a bene- 
diction on long fields of barley, wheat, , 
and rye. 

Dorinda, sitting in the doorway of the 
old farm-house, had only to lift up her 

( 5 ) 


6 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

eyes to behold on every hand a land 
of peace and plenty, to whose dreamy 
beatitude the flocks and herds on 
the quiet, hill-slopes lent a tranquil 
charm. 

She was stemming a bowl of rich, red 
berries for supper, pausing, from time 
to time, to glance away, a trifle uneasily, 
toward the afternoon shadows, which 
were stealthily lengthening across the 
rolling green sward, and to listen to 
the light wind in the clump of pine 
trees in the rear. To-day, in their 
mournful cadence, she detected some- 
thing of both a warning and a menace. 
She could not close her ears to the 
persistent sound. 

Presently her hands fell idly into her 
lap. Her eyes, under the stress of a 
? swift reminder, were suddenly lowered ; 
her cheeks flushed crimson as the fruit 
over which her face was bent. 

And the tall pine trees, like gossiping 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 7 


old crones, bent their heads together 
and spoke always of him ! 

She was very pretty, in a certain inso- 
lent, sullen fashion ; and she was a 
pleasant picture in her checked ging- 
ham gown, with masses of bronze hair 
loosely coiled round and round a some- 
what defiant little head. Small in stat- 
ure and very delicately made, she was 
erect and spirited in bearing, quick but 
graceful in every movement. On look- 
ing at her, one was struck at once with 
her intense nervous force, joined to a 
kind of tropical warmth and languor. 
Her lips, a trifle too full and red, closed 
over rows of small, even, milk-white 
teeth. Her eyes, of a changeful amber, 
seemed to hold always a lurking, secret 
fire under their heavily fringed lids, 
as if a ray of sunlight had pierced to 
some densely shadowed pool and illu- 
mined all its depths. Though rough- 
ened by a too careless exposure to 


8 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

the sun, her hands were yet shapely 
and pleasing in a way; but they were 
the hands of a child rather than of a 
woman, being of the fragile, appealing 
kind that evoke tenderness. 

She was a creature of whims and 
contradictions, and it pleased her not 
to look up, by so much as a glance, 
from the simple task before her, when, 
after a time, there was a click at the 
garden gate near by, and a man came 
slowly toward her across the lawn. He 
paused, at length, with one foot on the 
steps of the little vine-covered portico, 
and peered inquiringly into her face, 
his honest gray eyes lighting into a 
merry twinkle. 

He was a man of about five-and-sixty 
years of age, tall, angular, and singu- 
larly spare, his shoulders drooping 
wearily, as if weighted down under 
the toilsome burden of life. A shock 
of long, iron-gray hair fell back from 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


9 


his thin features. In his expression 
there was a look of pathetic entreaty, 
such as one sometimes sees in the eyes 
of dumb creatures. He was in his 
shirt-sleeves, the day being warm, but 
he carried on his arm a faded coat, 
which somewhat approximated in color 
the light-blue jean trousers which he 
wore tucked in his boots in the primi- 
tive fashion of the mountaineer. He 
stood for some moments attentively 
regarding the girl, always with the 
same quizzical, yet earnest gaze. 

“ D’rindy,” he said, presently, speak- 
ing in the dialect that thirty years’ con- 
tact with a different mode of speech 
had failed to affect, “ ’pears to me like 
ye air about to turn thet young feller’s 
head with all yer fixin’s-up an’ goin’s- 
on,” with a sly nod in the direction of 
the interior of the house, newly swept 
and garnished in anticipation of a long- 
expected arrival. “ Tears like it to 


10 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

me" he added, sententiously, a broad 
smile chasing itself over his wrinkled, 
sun-burnt face. 

In truth there was much hurrying 
to and fro. Occasionally, from some 
upper chamber or distant hallway, 
there echoed a strident tone of com- 
mand, jarring painfully upon the calm 
of the summer afternoon. 

But Dorinda was apparently not in 
a mood for conversation ; she made no 
reply, though the color slightly deep- 
ened in her cheeks, and a proud light — 
half of pain, half of resentment — shot 
for an instant into her eyes. The man 
paused abruptly and turned away in 
sudden confusion, at the same time giv- 
ing a startled look toward the doorway 
at the sound of approaching footsteps. 

A woman was coming toward them 
down the long hall with quick, nervous 
tread, her basket of keys rattling on 
her arm. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 11 


She was a stout, blonde, middle-aged 
woman, dressed in a black alpaca gown, 
none too neat in its appearance, the 
general untidiness, however, being 
somewhat relieved by a long white 
cotton apron, freshly ironed and very 
stiffly starched, which concealed the 
front of the dress from waist to hem. 

Micajah regarded her with the look 
of uncertainty and awe with which he 
was invariably inspired in the presence 
of his respected, but, it must be ad- 
mitted, much-dreaded spouse, as she 
sunk, evidently in a state of complete 
exhaustion, upon one of the wooden 
benches that flanked the porch on 
either side. 

“ Well, I am tired ! ” she exclaimed 
with emphasis, addressing herself to 
' no one in particular, and leaning back 
wearily against the brick wall of the 
house. “I’ve been on my feet since 
the dawn of day, an’ here it’s nearly 


12 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

fo’ o’clock, an’ things not half done yet. 
Micajah,” darting a hasty, impatient 
glance at the tall, lank figure, still 
standing on the steps below, “ has any- 
body tole Steve he’s got to go to town 
with the rockaway ? Sakes-a-live, Mica- 
jah ! ” she fairly screamed, springing 
with alacrity to her feet, on noting the 
blank look of hopeless confusion upon 
her husband’s countenance, “ can’t you 
never think of nothin f Well, I’d like 
to know if there’s anything ever would 
be done on this place from morn till 
night, if ’t’wa’n’t for me ! ” As she 
hurried away, the basket of keys on 
her arm made an angry, jangling sound 
that bespoke her wrath. 

Micajah, wisely realizing the utter 
futility of any attempt at explanation 
or of offering assistance in her pres- 
ent frame of mind, resigned himself 
with characteristic philosophy to the 
situation. “ Mankind air naterally fond 


YOUNTT GREER OF KENTUCKY. 13 


of abuse,” he muttered, as he seated 
himself comfortably on the bench she 
had vacated. Taking out his cob pipe, 
he let his thoughts travel slowly back- 
ward. 

One-and-thirty years before he had 
married Maria Holt, the daughter of a 
well-to-do farmer of the blue-grass — 
a young woman celebrated in her local- 
ity more for a native shrewdness and 
a somewhat caustic and pointed method 
of expression than for the possession 
of personal charm. His marriage had 
not been a happy one. Developing an 
indomitable will, and, moreover, being 
disturbed as time went on by certain 
social pretensions and aspirations, his 
wife seemed unable to rid herself of 
the thought that she had made an un- 
fortunate misalliance in marrying the 
tall young mountaineer employed in 
the humble capacity of post-and-railer 
upon her father’s farm. She had so 


14 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

thoroughly convinced Micajah himself 
of her condescension in their union, 
that it was with difficulty he could even 
attain to a realizing sense of his own 
parental right of interest in their son 
and only child, for whom, it appeared, 
her ambitious hopes knew neither rea- 
son nor limitation. It was, therefore, 
with a kind of shy apprehension, a feel- 
ing of remoteness, touching in its sim- 
ple meekness and unconscious abase- 
ment, that, for the past three days, he 
had been silently regarding the prep- 
arations in his household for the return 
of this young man after a four-years’ 
course of study in a German univer- 
sity. Micajah alike dreaded and longed 
for the meeting with his son, whose 
brief visits during his college days at 
Princeton had been events of no less 
importance in his eyes than the inva- 
sion of an army or the revolution of a 
nation. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 15 


From under her thick lashes Dorinda 
cast furtive glances at the long, quiet 
figure. 

“Could you get all the hands you 
wanted on the farm to-day?” she 
asked presently, her face .suddenly be- 
coming very sweet and gentle, as she 
lifted it for an instant to his. Her 
voice had in it the soft, caressing 
tones with which one .speaks to a 
little child. 

Micajah continued smoking leisurely 
for several seconds before he replied. 
Then he took the pipe from his mouth 
and, slowly turning, let his eyes rest 
lingeringly upon her. He could never 
look at Dorinda without being re- 
minded of all the wild, sweet beauty 
of the mountains. For had she too 
not looked upon the long range of the 
Cumberland, and heard the water trick- 
ling down the steep ravines, and seen 
the laurel and the rhododendron, and 


16 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

the tall mountain ferns? The very 
breath of the hills was about her. 

She was the daughter of a favorite 
cousin, who had died twelve years be- 
fore, leaving the child orphaned and 
alone in the world. There was some- 
thing for which he felt always an un- 
dying gratitude to Maria; in her own 
blunt fashion .she had shown unfailing 
kindness to the little waif who held so 
warm a place in his lonely old heart. 
In no way had she been made to feel 
her dependence. In consequence, the 
girl had grown into womanhood unac- 
quainted with either harshness or neg- 
lect, having been allowed to develop 
freely, according to her own natural 
bent and inclinations. Moreover, she 
had been given such opportunities for 
education as the country schools af- 
forded, and to Micajah, who regarded 
her with mingled pride and adora- 
tion, she was a miracle of learning 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 17 


unsurpassed by any save Harvey him- 
self. 

“Yaas,” he said, at length, in his 
quaint drawl, first pausing to press one 
lean fore-finger into the bowl of his 
pipe, “six big, strappin’-lookin’ fellers 
come along this mornin’, an’ I hired 
’em all quick ez a wink. We air a-get- 
tin’ along,” he admitted, serenely, “an’ 
likely to bring in a sight o’ money from 
the craps this year ; but it takes a sight 
o’ money to keep a-goin,” he added, 
meditatively. 

There followed a long silence, broken 
only by the drowsy hum of insects 
and the soughing sound of the wind 
in the branches. Dorinda was again 
lending herself to her task with steady 
persistence, apparently wholly absorbed 
in it. The heavy footfalls within had 
gradually ceased ; everything was 
peaceful, calm, and delicious. An old 
rooster, strutting through the farm- 


18 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

yard, uttered a prolonged crow, and as 
the echo died away the stillness ap- 
peared intensified. 

Mica j ah Greer, puffing away in his 
corner of the porch, and watching the 
girl from under his half-closed eye- 
lids, felt his brain stirred anew with 
a thought that had long been to him 
a cherished dream, but to which he 
had never before dared give expres- 
sion by any outward sign. 

“D’rindy,” he said, cautiously, sud- 
denly bending toward her, seeing that 
she was about to rise, having gathered 
up the bowl of strawberries at her 
side, “ D’rindy,” touching her gently 
on the arm, “ thet air a powerful fine- 
lookin’ pictyer a-hangin’ in thar on 
the wall,” making a motion with his 
hand in the direction of the august 
apartment designated as “the parlor.” 
“An’ he must hev a sight o’ lamin’, 
arter all them years in thet furrin 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 19 


kentry. But D’rindy,” his voice fal- 
tering and sinking down into an in- 
finite tenderness and pleading, as the 
girl, stung by some vague alarm, 
hastily drew back, trembling vio- 
lently, her eyes dilating, ‘‘he allers 
did set a heap o’ sto’ by you, an’ 
he aint the kind to be a-puttin’ on 
ahrs over his own blood kin, if I 
aint mighty mistaken.” 

He had risen, and now stood tower- 
ing above the little slim form. The 
muscles around his mouth twitched 
nervously, and the hand that .still held 
the cob pipe shook with suppressed 
emotion. His voice had a quavering, 
feeble sound. He appeared to have 
become suddenly very old. He leaned 
forward and kissed her on the brow, 
a demonstration of affection he sel- 
dom displayed, and which lent an 
added solemnity to the occasion. 

“D’rindy, somethin’ tells me it aint 


20 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

fer long I’m goin’ to be with ye; this 
pain in my chist hyar hev come to 
me agin an’ agin ez a sorter warnin’ 
like ; an’ it aint in the course o’ natur 
thet I shouldn’t be the first to go. 
Child,” with a sharp emphasis, “hev 
ye forgot how he useter ride ye down 
the long hill on yer little sled, an’ 
useter laugh ye out o’ yer cryin’, an’ 
tantrums, an’ sech?” With a timid 
touch his roughened hand hovered 
unsteadily over the brown head droop- 
ing so low before him. “ An’ thet 
summer,” he went on in mild rem- 
iniscence, letting his eyes wander 
dreamily away to where the sunlight 
flashed on the wheat fields in the dis- 
tance, “ thet summer he come home 
arter he’d got his diplomy — sech a 
tall, fine-lookin’ young man — he ’lowed 
you was an out-an’-out beauty, he did. 
D’rindy — if you an’ him — D’rindy — ” 
With the sharp, reproachful cry of 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 21 


one who has received into his breast 
a mortal wound from a well-be- 
loved hand, the girl sprung quickly 
back, reeling .slightly as from the 
blow. His words, blending with her 
own thoughts, filled her with a sense 
of the most galling humiliation and 
dismay. For an instant she stood her 
ground, her eyes flashing, defiant, bit- 
terly resentful. 

The delicate nostrils quivered in in- 
tense pain, and every vestige of color 
slowly drifted from the sensitive, will- 
ful face, whereon pride and abasement 
struggled most pitiably. Then, with 
a sudden movement, she put up both 
her hands and bent her head down to 
them as a crimson flood-tide of shame 
swept over her from neck to brow. A 
moment afterward, to his infinite sur- 
prise and consternation, she had flung 
herself sobbing at his feet. 

“ Why, D’rindy! Why, D’rindy! What 


22 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ails ye, child ? ” the old man exclaimed 
anxiously, casting helpless, troubled 
glances about him, roused out of the 
usual stolid calm of his demeanor by 
this most unexpected outbreak. 

If the matter he had been trying 
to touch upon with all the delicacy of 
which he was capable had been greeted 
with a burst of wild, derisive, yet fond- 
ly sweet, laughter, such as she not 
unfrequently bestowed upon his blun- 
dering awkwardness; or, if she had 
suddenly turned upon him in sharp 
retort, with hot, reckless words of 
anger, repented of almost as soon as 
uttered, that would have seemed quite 
in the natural order of things, just as 
it should be; in fact, that would have 
been Dorinda. But this little crum- 
pled, sobbing creature at his feet, 
acutely suffering under the stress of 
an emotion wholly beyond his simple 
ken — how was he to comfort her? 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 23 


He could only continue to look 
vaguely around, as if seeking an expla- 
nation from the inanimate things 
about him. His hand in a kind of 
mechanical way again began to move 
soothingly, yet cautiously, as if half- 
fearing a repulse, to and fro over 
the thick coils of shining hair. 

“ D’rindy,” he ventured at length, 
very gently, “it be a sad sight fer 
these old eyes to see ye grievin’ same 
ez yer young heart was ’bout to 
break, an’ the cause all unbeknownst 
to me. Hyar, look up, honey, my 
little one, my pet ! What ails ye, 
D’rindy?” 

“Don't!” she whispered, huskily, 
still clinging about his knees, and hid- 
ing her face from his sight, “Don't!” 

“ I ain’t got no call to do nothin’ to 
vex ye, D’rindy,” he said, sorrowfully. 

“Oh, it was so cruel to talk like 
that,” she broke forth, after a time, 


24 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


in a kind of choked, muffled voice, 
“about dying — and — and that. Who 
is there to love me in all the world 
but you?” 

At first she could not bring herself 
to meet his shifting glance, but pres- 
ently her eyes, filled with a passion- 
ate pleading, did not shrink. 

“ Promise me that you will not talk 
like that again — about going — and 
— him,” her voice faltering. “ Indeed, 
indeed, I can not bear it. It isn’t kind ; 
it hurts me so,” a strained look con- 
tracting the delicate brows for an 
instant. “ Oh,” springing abruptly 
to her feet, appalled by a blinding 
thought, “if ever you should say 
this to him!" as she staggered back 
aghast. 

And then, though he held out his 
arms to her — sorely troubled as he 
was and perplexed — calling her by 
name and imploring her forgiveness. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 25 


she rushed, unheeding, past, and soon 
he heard the door of her own room 
close and the bolt slip. 


II. 


Several hours later there was a 
sound of carriage wheels in the dis- 
tance. The narrow lane leading from 
the broad highway was but rarely 
traversed, and the unfrequent noise 
of an approaching vehicle upon the 
rocky road could be heard far away. 

At the first echo of the horse’s hoofs, 
Dorinda, who, for the past three-quar- 
ters of an hour, had been straining 
her ears for the sound, sprung hur- 
riedly to her feet, at the same time 
uttering a low, sharp cry of stifled joy 
and dread. “He is coming, coming, 
coming !” she whispered under her 
breath. Her eyes grew soft, radiant 
— beautiful in their mysterious kind- 
ling. Her fragile, childlike form 

seemed to sway and bend with her 
( 26 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 27 


quick breathing. For an instant her 
heart leaped and fluttered beneath her 
thin gown like some wild, caged, little 
creature trying to escape, then fell in 
tune with the steady reverberations 
drawing ever nearer and nearer. 

She gave startled glances about the 
bare walls of her sparely furnished bed- 
room. A huge mahogany mausoleum, 
on which her lithe young limbs were 
wont to sink into repose, stood in one 
corner. A white marseilles counter- 
pane was stretched tightly across its 
broad surface from side to side, its 
four tall posts being surmounted by 
a most wonderful tester, whereon birds 
of paradise and fowls that were never 
yet on land or sea fluttered and pirou- 
etted in delightful disregard of real- 
ity. There were no pictures, no soft, 
easy, lounging chairs, no delicate femi- 
nine touches daintily suggestive of 
my lady’s boudoir ; but everything 


28 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

was spotlessly neat and rigidly in 
order. There was a two-ply carpet on 
the floor, and some dimity curtains 
hung at the windows, stiffly tied with 
bows of cherry-colored ribbon. A hid- 
eous wardrobe thrust itself obtrusively 
upon the sight, after the manner of 
offensive objects in general. A tall 
bureau, above which swung a mirror 
inconveniently high, a washstand, and 
two chairs — one stiff -backed, the other 
a split-seated, old-time rocker — com- 
pleted an effect that was not lacking 
in a certain element of picturesque- 
ness and the characteristic Southern 
aspect. 

There was a halt, a moment’s still- 
ness — the surrey had reached the 
gate, a quarter of a mile distant. In 
a few moments he would be here. 
She drew back from the window, 
trembling, her hands cold to the 
finger tips. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 29 


She gave an uncertain glance in the 
mirror, and then turned drearily away 
with a hopeless, pathetic gesture of 
regret. For the picture there re- 
vealed, of a young girl in a white 
muslin gown made in simplest fashion, 
was by no means to her liking. She 
could not have told wherein she 
failed; but in that moment she had 
become possessed of an altogether 
new and passionate longing to be dif- 
ferent. To feel awkward and countri- 
fied, or to experience an instant’s 
anxiety as to the possible opinion 
that might be entertained in regard 
to her, was galling to the proud sen- 
sitiveness of her imperious and wholly 
ungoverned nature. It filled her with 
a kind of fright and savage rebellion. 
In her pride and mortification she 
could have torn off the ill-fitting 
gown, upon which her unskillful fin- 
gers had spent so many hours, and 


30 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

have trampled it fiercely under foot. 
Quick, childish tears sprung to her 
eyes, but she forced them back with 
a spirit of instinctive resistance. 

The carriage had finally paused 
under her window, and the sound of 
hurrying footsteps, and voices in ex- 
cited greeting, floated up to her with 
the breath of honeysuckle and mignon- 
ette and new-mown hay. 

The twilight of the sweet June day 
had begun to gather. From far away 
in the dense oak woods, a whip-poor- 
will’s plaintive call mingled with the 
drowsy twittering beneath the eaves. 

“ Lord, but we air glad to see ye, 
Harvey ! ” interspersed with shrill, 
spasmodic feminine laughter, reached 
her from time to time, as she stood 
spellbound, a sickening sense of dis- 
comfiture stealing over her, listening 
and waiting, waiting and listening, to 
every word they spoke. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 31 


“But Dorinda — where is Dorinda?” 
The ringing tenor voice with its well- 
remembered timbre of sweetness, his 
light laughter, brought her to herself. 
She must go down. But how that 
voice thrilled and stung her in its 
careless levity and indifferent kind- 
ness ! All night she had heard it 
calling, calling in her sleep, and it 
had seemed to mock. 

Suddenly, with a tightening of the 
lips and a proud uplifting of her small 
figure, she turned, walked quickly from 
the room and down the stairs. 

“Women air powerful onsartain crit- 
ters, Harvey,” Micajah was explaining 
to his son, out of the depth of a rich 
experience, apologetically of Dorinda’s 
non-appearance; “ thar aint no countin’ 
on ’em,” with a sly shake of the head. 
“Thar’s D’rindy, now — she’s skittish, 
D’rindy is ; jest as mild an’ gentle part 
o’ the time ez my old gray mare on 


32 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


the way to meetin’, then, all of a sud- 
dent, she hev broke the traces an’ kicked 
the spatterboard, an’ afore you know it 
you air a-layin’ in the ditch a-enquirin’ 
of yerself the cause o’ the trouble.” 

At this unique revelation of char- 
acter the young man broke into a 
hearty laugh. 

Dorinda stood in the doorway for 
an instant unobserved. She was tak- 
ing in the scene quite calmly. Mrs. 
Greer, in her best black silk gown, 
flushed and elated, was sitting on one 
side of the porch, surveying her off- 
spring with glances of fond parental 
pride and undisguised admiration. 
Micajah, in his “Sunday clo’es,” awk- 
ward and ill at ease, sprawled near by 
with his usual air of calm self-efface- 
ment. The faultlessly dressed young- 
gentleman upon the rude wooden 
bench opposite appeared somewhat out 
of harmony with his surroundings. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 33 


He had thrown one arm carelessly 
back of his head, and was looking 
out upon the familiar landscape. 
The cool wind played with the thick 
brown hair about his temples. Dorinda 
regarded him critically and a trifle 
severely. She found his air of non- 
chalance and amiable toleration very 
irritating. It produced in her a spirit 
of mutiny and displeasure. She made 
a slight movement. He heard her, 
turned quickly, and was on his feet in 
an instant. 

“ Dorinda! ” 

With a characteristic, flattering ges- 
ture of alertness, he came forward to 
meet her, holding out both his hands. 
“ Dorinda, I am so glad to see you ! ” 
he exclaimed, warmly. 

He bent down and would have kissed 
her in simple cousinly fashion, but 
she drew back. Though she greeted 
him cordially, it was yet with a reserve 

3 


34 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

that both surprised and puzzled him 
for a moment. 

With a cool little motion she waived 
him back to his seat, and he, smiling 
still, and wholly at a loss to account 
for her formality, accepted it without 
comment, his eyes fixed upon her face 
with an expression of amused inquiry. 

He was a tall, well-built young fellow 
of nine-and-twenty, with a face of singu- 
lar attraction and interest — a face with 
even a touch of fascination and poetic 
fire. Scholarly, dignified, rather elegant 
in bearing, one would have noticed 
him in any crowd. There was a com- 
bined strength and sweetness about the 
well-modeled mouth, thought and deter- 
mination impressed upon every feature 
of his smooth-shaven face. The glasses 
which he wore almost habitually above 
his slightly aquiline nose increased the 
literary suggestiveness of his general 
appearance. Though in his attire there 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 35 


was a certain marked carefulness of 
detail, yet he wore his clothes easily 
— as a gentleman — and there was not 
a trace of self-consciousness about him 
in any way. 

“ I am so glad to see you, Dorinda,” 
he repeated, enthusiastically. “ I have 
been picturing to myself all through 
the drive home, what a delightful com- 
panion you will be in the long, lazy 
summer days of the next three months. 
And, by the way, what a little beauty 
you have become ! ” 

The girl grew rosy and facile under 
his praise. 

“ But, Harvey/' she suggested, dubi- 
ously, “I am afraid it will be very 
lonely for you here?” There was a 
sudden timidity in her voice that 
worked a transformation. The young 
man noted the change. He gave her 
another brief, sweeping glance. How 
very pretty she was ! 


36 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ Thet young gal over to the Gin’ral’s 
’pears to be hevin’ a powerful lonesome 
sorter time of it,” Mica j ah put in at this 
juncture. “ She aint hed much chance 
to wear many o’ them fine clo’es she 
brung along with her in thet big trunk, 
I’m a-thinkin’. I seed her standin’ in 
the hall at Grassland t’other day, an’ 
’peared to me like she was lookin’ 
mighty low-sperrited an’ down in the 
mouth.” 

“ I don’t see why it’s any more lone- 
some for her than for other people,” 
Dorinda replied, doggedly, looking 
away. The mobile, changeful little face 
had grown hard, and an undisguised 
bitterness had crept into her voice. 

The old man looked up quickly. A 
long experience had taught him a tact 
of management with Dorinda, not 
unlike that which he was accustomed 
to employ with an unbroken filly. 

“Thet’s so, D’rindy,” he assented. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 37 


mildly, “thet’s so. Young folks is 
purty much all alike, I reckon. I ’low 
’twas jest thet big trunk an’ all them 
fine clo’es thet set me a-steddyin’. 
Lord, now I wouldn’t hev to wear all 
them fine clo’es fer nothin’,” shifting 
uneasily under the restraint and ele- 
gance of his own proud apparel. 

Dorinda had seen the young woman 
referred to in the old country church, 
and her beauty had stung her, leaving 
a sense of disquieting pain. It had 
seemed to stifle and oppress her like 
the rich odor of certain gorgeous, trop- 
ical blooms. At the first sight of her, 
her heart had stood still. During the 
entire service she had watched her 
breathlessly, unmindful of text or ser- 
mon, heedless of supplication or of 
song. Never in the whole course of 
her obscure existence had she looked 
upon so wonderful a being as this 
lovely golden-haired woman in her 


38 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

unconscious serenity and grace. The 
conflicting emotions with which she 
regarded her amounted to a definite 
experience, that contained in it all the 
enduring elements of a mental shock. 
The realization had come to her 
instantaneously of a wider meaning to 
life than had heretofore presented 
itself. Her horizon, formerly bounded 
by the simplest conditions and aspira- 
tions, seemed to stretch away into 
infinite space. She was conscious of an 
unreasoning dissatisfaction and revolt. 
But it was not merely a longing for 
material things, the bland amenities of 
a luxurious existence — though she, too, 
would have liked to wear soft raiment 
and live in kings’ houses — it was 
rather a desire, thoroughly feminine 
and strengthened by the sharp recog- 
nition of her own deficiency, for the 
possession of all that goes together to 
render a woman lovable and complete. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 39 


The picture of Margaret Pryor, as 
she saw her sitting in the dark back- 
ground of the high pew, rose before 
her anew, vivid, distinct, in the airy 
picturesqueness . of her cool white 
draperies. And it was in the society 
of such women as she that Harvey 
Greer had spent so many years of his 
life! She brought her lips together 
with a sudden compression. 

But the young man’s face betrayed 
only an indifferent interest. 

“ Well, I’ve no doubt she’s lonesome 
enough,” Mrs. Greer remarked point- 
edly, with a shrug of her fat shoulders, 
“ anybody ’d be, buried out here ten 
miles in the country. But what she 
come for? That’s what I’m sayin’. 
Beaus is scarce in this neighborhood,” 
with a short laugh, “leastways I don’t 
see many cornin’ round Dorinda, here, 
unless it be that young preacher from 
over at Walnut Hill, that Dorinda 


40 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


won’t so much as turn her head an’ 
look at. But she’s an out an’ out 
beauty, an’ no mistake about it,” she 
added emphatically, with all the air of 
a connoisseur in such matters. “ When 
she come walkin’ in church last Sun- 
day mornin’ in that white dress an’ 
all that soft lace about her, I said to 
myself, ‘ If only Harvey could see that !’ 
I tell Dorinda,” she broke off, “ ’t would 
be a fine chance to study the latest 
fashions, if it is in meetin’ — an’ a cat 
can look at a king — but Dorinda never 
was a very good hand with her needle.” 

Harvey winced and looked slightly 
annoyed. The girl’s cheeks were burn- 
ing crimson. 

“ I hope Dorinda will not resort to 
such methods of studying the latest 
fashions,” he answered dryly, “particu- 
larly as she seems to have already suc- 
ceeded in making herself so lovely,” 
he concluded, with kindly intent, not- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 41 


in g the poor child’s embarrassment and 
distress. 

He had a kind heart, and, moreover, 
he was always conscious of a sense of 
personal discomfort at the sight of 
another’s pain. 

“I am sure this gown you have on 
is perfect; did you make it yourself?” 
he asked, reassuringly. 

Dorinda’s sense of humor was one 
of those blessings for which, no doubt, 
it had never occurred to her to give 
thanks, but it had often served to carry 
her scathless through many a trying 
situation, in spite of the little flying 
poisoned darts. At this absurdly pal- 
pable attempt upon the part of the 
young man to soothe her wounded 
feelings, she broke into a laugh, so 
sweet and spontaneous and delicious, 
Harvey forgot that it was against him 
her mirth was leveled, and joined in. 
It reminded him, in its delightful over- 


42 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

flow, of an experience one day in Switz- 
erland, a year before, when, with a 
party of friends, wearied and thirsting 
from their long tramp, he had sud- 
denly come upon a sparkling little 
mountain stream, tumbling musically 
down a steep ravine. 

“But who else, Harvey ?” she in- 
quired, suavely, the corners of her 
mouth twitching still, as she looked 
up derisively into his face, holding 
her small head slightly to one side. 

“ I had rather the impression that 
you had ordered it from New York 
or Paris,” the young man replied with 
great gravity and a lame pretense at 
ignoring the occasion of her ridicule. 
But he was beginning to experience 
a* certain uneasiness in the presence 
of Dorinda, though he laughed back 
at her with the utmost good nature. 

He rose and stood leaning against 
one of the slender vine-encircled posts 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 43 


that supported the narrow little portico. 
Both his parents had gone within. The 
summer twilight was wrapping the 
lonely hills in a purple gauze. He 
heard a tinkling of sheep bells in the 
distance, and the voices of the farm- 
hands singing some plaintive negro 
melody as they trudged homeward 
through the fields. How idyllic and 
delightful it was, and what old mem- 
ories it awoke in him after all those 
Crowded, feverish, busy years, in which 
ambition and a kind of boyish exuber- 
ance in almost every form of pleasure 
had seemed ever struggling for the 
mastery ! 

“My love of all beautiful things is 
destined to work my ruin some day,” 
he had once prophesied jestingly to a 
friend. In looking at Dorinda he was 
conscious of the same keen artistic 
gratification that he would have ex- 
perienced in regarding an excellently 


44 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

well-executed water-color or pastel. 
She was for him simply a part of 
the delicious June day. 

He felt an indulgent, brotherly sort 
of interest in her, and presently found 
himself wishing vaguely that her lot 
had been less narrow. In his imagi- 
nation he saw her decked out in the 
dainty paraphernalia of certain women 
he had known, her expression con- 
trolled, all the ungoverned impulses 
of her temperament held within the 
leash of that enforced restraint which 
contact w r ith the world demands, and 
realized that few, if any, could have 
surpassed her had the opportunity for 
this enlightenment been hers. 

He thought it might be possible 
for him to help her in many ways. 
But he was too much of a poet not 
to recognize the charm of her incom- 
pleteness. 

“ What friends we are going to be, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 45 

Dorinda !” he said, finally, rousing him- 
self from his revery. “ Do you know 
when I said good-by to you four 
years ago, I hardly thought there was 
such good fortune ahead of me as to 
find you still here when I returned? 
I had made quite sure that some young 
fellow would have come along and 
carried you off long ago.” 

Dorinda’s eyes were lowered, the 
little head drooping slightly as under 
the weight of its heavy coils of hair. 

“ But you find me still here,” she 
answered softly, after a time. 

“Yes, I find you still here,” he re- 
peated, “and heartily glad I am of 
it, too. Why, what on earth would I 
do without you, Dorinda?” he asked, 
in mock dismay. “I have no doubt 
whatever that the fates have reserved 
you for my sole and separate benefit. 
And you may be assured I shall 
make the best of my opportunity. I 


46 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

feel all kinds of savage and tyran- 
nical instincts kindling in me. In 
the first place, then/’ he concluded 
despotically, “you are to offer your- 
self as a victim for my amusement. 
We shall walk together, ride together, 
and read books together — which will 
be delightful. By the way, Dorinda, 
did you ever read any of Robert 
Browning’s poetry ? ” 

“ No,” she admitted, reluctantly, “ I 
never did.” 

“ Then you must begin and cultivate 
his acquaintance at once ; to-morrow, if 
you wish. Not that he’s such a prime 
favorite of mine, either — but every- 
body reads him nowadays. And then 
there’s Carlyle, and Ruskin, and Ten- 
nyson, and the Arnolds, and Tolstoi, 
and Swinburne — oh, by the way, I 
think we’ll cut short on those last 
two,” coming to a sudden halt in his 
enumeration. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 47 


“ Why ? ” Dorinda asked, breath- 
lessly, an unrestrained eagerness illu- 
mining her features, and suffusing a 
warm, bright glow of unspeakable de- 
light. “ Why ? ” 

“Why, Dorinda?” he meditated, 
looking pensively down on her pretty, 
flushed face lifted thirstingly to his. 
“Well, there are a good many reasons 
why. In the first place, I doubt if we 
shall have time — the summer does 
not last forever, you know.” Do- 
rinda’s face fell. 

“After all, I may not be here more 
than a month, or six weeks, at the 
longest. I should like to go and sur* 
vey the future scene of my labors — 
get my bearings, so to speak — before 
I say good-by for good and all. These 
curious twistings of destiny, as mani- 
fested in one’s own existence, furnish 
considerable food for reflection. Did 
it ever occur to you, Dorinda,” he in. 


48 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

quired, in the light and bantering tone 
he chose to adopt with her, “what a 
complicated and mystifying problem 
this human life is continually serving 
up for elucidation by us ? ‘ Reasoning 
at every step he treads, man yet mis- 
takes his way,’ ” he quoted, musingly. 

The light slowly faded out of the 
girl’s eyes ; she had grown very pale. 
With a piteous little movement of pain 
she turned away her head. 

“ I thought,” she faltered, “ I thought 

— as you would be so near to us — 
Virginia’s not very far away — that 
sometimes we might see you, perhaps 

— once in a great while?” 

“ And so you will,” he responded, 
cheerfully, “provided you are here to 
see — visions of that young Lochinvar 
that is to come and carry you away 
from us are still haunting my fancy, 
you observe. In the meantime,” heark- 
ening to the sound of the supper-bell 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 49 


in the distance, “come and give me 
something to eat. Come, Dorinda ; 
I’m as hungry as a wolf.” 


4 


III. 


“ He’s a credit to ye, Marier, no 
denyin’ thet. Puts me jest a leetle in 
mind now — with, them specks hitched 
up on his nose an’ a-topplin’ off con- 
tinually — of thet young, furrin-lookin’ 
chap thet was down hyar last fall 
a-spyin’ out blue-grass Ian’s an’ talkin’ 
horse-flesh same ez a buzz-saw ; but he’s 
a credit to ye, thar’s no denyin’ thet.” 

This remark of his father, acci- 
dently overheard on the evening of 
his arrival, appealed to Harvey with 
a profound and touching significance. 
It seemed to cling to him with a pain- 
fully persistent recurrence. After all, 
it was difficult for him to regard him- 
self as a credit either to himself or to 
any one else ; but their blind faith in 
him, their admiration and devotion, 

( 50 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 51 

only marked him, in his own estima- 
tion, as a failure and an ingrate. 

It was with emotions too varied and 
complex to admit of analysis that he 
had returned to his native land and 
his old home after an absence of four 
years. Since landing in New York 
he had been trying hard to imagine 
himself both patriotic and happy, and 
had failed signally in his efforts. His 
old free student life had taken strong 
hold upon him. In the atmosphere of 
Heidelberg he had sought and found 
a truly ideal existence, and from his 
travels he had developed a breadth, 
an independence of thought, which 
rendered all idea of restraint partic- 
ularly irksome. Although, during 
the past year, the necessity of return- 
ing to his own land and entering 
actively upon his vocation had fre- 
quently occurred to him, now that the 
time had really come for the step to 


52 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

be taken, he found himself looking 
longingly back to the life he must 
forever abandon. But there had 
seemed to be no excuse for further 
delaying his return. He was a clever 
mathematician, and having been of- 
fered a chair in his special depart- 
ment in a college in Virginia, he 
felt constrained to accept the position. 
Yet he did so with reluctance and 
much inward dissatisfaction. 

Perhaps, to some extent, the key to 
his character may be found in the 
fact that he was a dreamer, not a 
logician. He was a tremendous 
worker, a man of vast hopes and 
aspirations ; but it seemed to him, on 
finding himself forced to squarely face 
his existence from the standpoint of 
the present situation, that he had 
done absolutely naught in view of all 
that he had planned and still wished 
to accomplish. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 55 


After all his years of incessant 
labor there were times when he ques- 
tioned that he had not blundered in 
the choice of his life's work. Litera- 
ture in its broadest application ap- 
pealed strongly to him. He was an 
omnivorous reader. He had had pub- 
lished in the leading magazines of 
Europe and America numerous articles 
upon topics of the day, which had been 
commended; and he had rather the 
impression that some time he would 
write a novel — the great American 
novel, perhaps, so ardently desired 
and so tardy in appearing. 

On the voyage homeward, he had 
spent hours thinking tenderly and rev- 
erently, and also, it must be confessed, 
a trifle remorsefully, of his father and 
mother. Above all, he felt the 
deepest gratitude for whatever sacri- 
fices it had been their pleasure to 
make in his behalf. To others, be- 


54 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

tween him and them, there must 
always remain an intellectual and 
social disparity, fostered on his part 
by constant study and the intimate 
association with men and women of 
the highest grade of cultivation; but 
his pride could never for one instant 
allow that he was separated, by any 
means whatever, from those united 
to him by the closest bonds of blood 
and affection. There is a true inborn 
dignity in the native Kentuckian 
which, with all his veneration for the 
claims of heredity and the old tradi- 
tions, is absolutely self-sustaining. 
Young Greer, in his brave recogni- 
tion of the obscurity of his own 
origin, in his unfailing courtesy, if 
possible more punctiliously exercised 
toward the members of his own 
household than to strangers, was in 
every way a gentleman, though he 
could boast no long line of distin- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 55 


guished ancestors, no heroes, states- 
men, nor scholars to whom he could 
refer for those instincts of refinement 
which seemed his as a natural birth- 
right. 

But unconsciously, by a process of 
gradual absorption, he had fallen 
under influences too potent to be dis- 
regarded. Deeply engrossed in his 
work, he had apparently cared little 
for the popularity he seemed, on 
every hand, to evoke. The doors of 
the distinguished, and the powerful, 
and the wealthy, had opened, as by 
a kind of magic, for him, and he, 
having once entered, became of ne- 
cessity a part of the life of which he 
partook. During his college days at 
Princeton, he had fallen in with a 
clique of young men of high social 
prestige, and through these the soci- 
ety of New York and Washington 
had become a irequent experience. 


56 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

Later on, in his sojourn abroad, en- 
countering one of his old classmates, 
the son of a diplomatic representa- 
tive of his country, he had seen a 
phase of life in foreign lands of 
which opportunity is given to few. 

That he finally returned, after all 
his wanderings and experiences, to 
Kentucky, without ever having met 
a woman that aroused in him more 
than a fleeting admiration, is prob- 
ably due to the fact that he was 
something of a poet and an idealist; 
and the women he had thus far 
known, in the brief and cursory con- 
sideration he had allowed them, ap- 
peared to him as either wholly joined 
to their idols of vanity, or wanting in 
imagination and sympathetic charm. 
Moreover, his ideal was already fixed, 
and his standard was peculiarly lofty. 
In other words, he was still quite 
young. As men grow older, they 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 57 


become less exacting, the great law 
of compromise being better under- 
stood ; their lost illusions may still 
cling to them in a measure, and at 
times harrow them with remembrance, 
but the light of common day is over 
all. 

When Harvey Greer opened his eyes 
on the first morning of his return, the 
sun was high in the heavens. It was 
streaming in, full in his face, through 
the narrow little casement, falling in 
golden splashes upon the carpet, and 
glistening upon the bright colors of 
the hexagon silk quilt, spread as an 
ornament solely — for the night had 
been warm — across the foot of his bed. 
For an instant, he experienced an odd 
feeling of uncertainty as to time and 
locality; then, with a short laugh, he 
pulled his watch from under his pillow 
and looked about him. It was eight 
o’clock, and the family must have 


58 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

breakfasted more than an hour ago. 
At this reflection he grew serious and 
took himself severely to task. He 
must on no account be guilty of such 
a fault again, he said to himself as he 
sprang out of bed. Why on earth, 
he insisted, should he obtrude upon 
them his more luxurious ideas of liv- 
ing ? If the time ordained among them 
to break their fast should be seven 
o’clock, or even so barbarous an hour 
as six, he firmly resolved that there 
he would be in the midst of them 
without fail — a resolution which, be 
it said to his credit, he managed to 
adhere to with praiseworthy persist- 
ence. 

As he came down the stairs from his 
bed-room, he was struck with the se- 
rene quietude over everything. There 
was no one stirring in any direction ; 
the house appeared entirely deserted. 
But it was evident that its inmates had 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 59 


not been spirited away in the night ; 
for, whatever disorder there had been 
the day before was now repaired, and 
there prevailed an air of general super- 
vision silently manifested on all sides. 
The doors were open and all the win- 
dows had been raised. Delicious odors 
of the sweet June day came floating 
in. A red-bird was singing in the 
branches near by, its strong, clear note 
now and again breaking forth into such 
a rapturous swell of ecstatic melody 
that the young man paused involunta- 
rily to listen. 

He finally made his way to the din- 
ing room, which was also forsaken. 
The cloth still remained on the table, 
but the breakfast had evidently long 
since been removed. It was in many 
respects the most agreeable room in the 
house, and furnished in better taste, in 
that there were here no futile attempts 
at adornment such as were displayed 


60 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

elsewhere in a painful striving for 
effect. The furniture, which was of 
massive, beautiful mahogany, gave a 
look of substantial dignity. Harvey 
turned a quick glance about him. 

Nothing was changed in any way. 
There in the corner ticked in loud, 
ominous voice the tall clock with the 
revolving moon, which had been one 
of the mysterious delights of his child- 
hood. He drew nearer and looked up 
into the face of the bland old time- 
piece, smiling as benignly down upon 
him to-day as of old, its smooth dial 
reminding him of the soulless counte- 
nances that one sometimes encounters. 
On the broad sideboard there was the 
same array of silver goblets that he 
well remembered — most of them pre- 
miums won at fairs, proofs of domestic 
industry and honest competition. And 
there, beneath the window, was the low, 
cushioned seat on which as a little 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 61 


child he had so often sat at the close of 
day, to watch with dreamy, wondering 
eyes the great red ball sink slowly out 
of sight behind the poplar trees. He 
could recall the strange thrill of an- 
guish he had experienced in those mo- 
ments, a passionate fear of he knew not 
what — a filling of the eyes with tears 
— a sense of overwhelming sadness and 
unutterable things. He recollected 
also the quick stroke with which he 
always dashed away the tears, lest, in 
his proud sensitiveness, there should be 
one to see and mock. After all, he 
reflected, how far, with all our philoso- 
phy, do we ever get beyond those earli- 
est instincts and childish emotions? 
The mystery, the pride, the fear of un- 
seen things, the darkness and the 
doubt — when do they cease to beset 
us ? 

Presently his mother heard him 
moving to and fro in the room and 


62 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

hurried in, perspiring and out of 
breath, her blonde face even more 
florid than usual from bending over 
the kitchen stove, assisting in the 
preparation of his breakfast. She car- 
ried a large iron “waiter,” laden with 
eatables, which, before he could get 
to her, she had deposited upon the 
table with such energy that all the 
dishes rattled crazily together, and 
were in imminent danger of being 
completely overthrown. 

“Mother!” he broke forth, con- 
tritely, “ how selfish I am to put you 
to such trouble! No, don’t go for 
anything else,” seeing that she was 
about to dart away again in the direc- 
tion of the doorway, “ I protest. Why, 
you have brought me the breakfast of 
a king. Here, sit down by me — I 
want to talk to you,” and he drew her 
chair up quite close to his own. 

Mrs. Greer obeyed with a shade of 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 68 


reluctance, keeping her eyes fixed on 
the waiter to see that nothing was 
wanting, and surveying the whole with 
an air of depreciation. 

“You’d better let me go an’ see about 
your flannel cakes, Harvey,” she ob- 
jected, “they’ll be burned to a crisp, 
certain sure. That girl I’ve got now 
aint worth her salt. She knows no 
more about cookin’ than a heathen, 
after all the trouble I’ve had with her, 
too. An’ she’s an awful rogue,” she 
continued, letting her voice fall and 
drawing a little nearer ; “ you’d better 
keep a sharp eye on all your things — 
she bears watchin’. I do believe she’d 
steal the communion service itself if 
she got a chance at it.” 

Harvey’s face wore an expression of 
becoming gravity. Moreover, he ap- 
peared deeply interested in these rev- 
elations of human depravity being 
dished up as a kind of sauce for his 


64 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

morning repast. He held his knife 
and fork poised aloft a moment in 
natural hesitation as to where he should 
make a selection from so tempting an 
array. 

It was a genuine Kentucky breakfast, 
and the young man felt disposed to 
show his appreciation of it over any 
other breakfast that had been offered 
him in years. He had fried chicken 
with cream gravy, and beefsteak, and 
cold ham — such ham as one seldom sees 
out of Kentucky — four or five different 
kinds of bread, chocolate, coffee, Alder- 
ney cream and butter, maple syrup, 
cherries, and strawberries fresh from 
the vines. 

“But why do you keep this girl?” 
Harvey asked, immediately throwing 
his whole soul into the subject of the 
domestic grievances. “ Why don’t you 
get somebody else to cook in her place, 
somebody who knows how, for in- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 65 


stance? Surely the culinary art has 
not declined in Kentucky?” he in- 
quired, smiling at the mere suggestion. 

“ She’s as good as anybody I can get, 
I reckon,” Mrs. Greer responded, with 
a sigh of resignation. “ If ever there 
was a triflin’, worthless, no-’count set, 
it’s the young niggers that’s growin’ 
up of this generation,” she declared. 
“ Freedom’s turned their heads, may 
be. Housekeepin’ in the blue-grass 
aint what it once was, Harvey, nor 
farmin’ neither, for that matter. What 
with the mean kind of labor we get 
now, and your father’s old-fashioned 
notions an’ slow ways, we’re likely to be 
lan’ poo’ all our days, far as I can 
see.” 

“Yes, but I thought,” Harvey here 
interposed, pausing an instant to carve 
the juicy steak upon which his choice 
had finally fallen, “I thought that last 

year you had great success with the 
6 


66 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


crops. I don’t see how you could hope 
to do much better. I confess I don’t 
myself think there is much money in 
farming under the present system — 
but then what would you do?” he said, 
earnestly looking into her face. 

“What would I do?” she cried, with 
sudden vehemence. “ I’ll tell you what 
I’d do. To begin with, I’d cut down 
all that worthless timber that’s been 
cumberin’ the ground for nobody 
knows how long, an’ sell the best of it. 
Then I’d build barns, an’ plow up the 
lan’, an’ plant tobaccer — there’s money 
in tobaccer — an’ I’d make more in two 
years than Mica j ah makes in any five; 
that’s what I’d do.” 

There was in her manner all the 
old fretfulness and impatience with 
which he had been long familiar. As 
he looked at her from time to time, 
he noted with pain that the furrows 
in her brow had grown deeper in the 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 67 


last four years. The petty annoyances 
of her daily existence had left their 
mark upon her countenance, where 
great energy and force of character of 
a certain order were yet strongly 
stamped. In his impotent desire to 
right things — a feeling with which he 
was often possessed — a shadow came 
into his eyes. His glance wandered 
away toward the open window and out 
upon the wilderness of green beyond. 
A brilliant, sapphire sky shone over- 
head. There was absolutely not a 
cloud. The clambering rose-vine near 
the window wafted in a delicious, spicy 
odor. Nature wore a look of intensity 
under the azure vault. 

“No matter how barren the past may have been, 
’Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green! ” 

It was so pathetic to him that she 
could not feel that, too, on a day like 
this; such a pity, he thought, in his un- 
tried strength and the hopefulness of 


68 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

his brave young manhood, intoxicated 
as he was with this “ new wine of the 
year,” that there should be any blind 
to the glory over all the earth. 

But when he looked into his moth- 
er’s face, he heard again the throb- 
bing of the great sad heart of human- 
ity, by which his sensitive, sympathetic 
nature was often roused into impul- 
sive action. He strove to divert her 
thoughts into pleasanter channels, and 
he realized that he could please her 
best by talking of himself. With 
modest egoism he told her of his 
work, his plans for the future, of the 
places he had visited, and of the life 
and customs in other lands; above all, 
he described to her the brilliant so- 
cial scenes in which he had had a 
part, knowing well that such narra- 
tion would delight her, perhaps, most 
of all. By the time breakfast was 
ended .she had grown quite cheerful, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 69 


and her face shone as she looked 
proudly at him. 

“Where shall I find Dorinda?” Har- 
vey asked, as he rose from the table, 
with the prospect of a long day before 
him. 

“If you can keep trac’ of Dorinda, 
Harvey,” she replied, with a nervous 
laugh, “it’s more’n I can. Most likely 
she’s off by herself somewheres, mop- 
in’ in a corner maybe — there’s no 
tellin’. I never saw the like of Do- 
rinda since I was bawn. In my young 
days girls was always on the pad, 
leastways plannin’ some rout or other, 
an’ stickin’ a ribbon in their hats to 
please the beaus. What with picnics, 
an’ fairs, an’ candy pullin’s, an’ goin’ 
to meetin’ of a Sunday, times useter 
be lively enough. Not that the fairs, 
an’ the picnics, an’ the rest of it ever 
done much for me,” she added, in 
rueful recollection of her own misdi- 


70 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

rected energies and ineffectual adorn- 
ment. “ An’ then, the neighborhood’s 
changed,” she went on with a sigh, 
more for her vanished hopes than her 
present isolation. “ It’s quiet out here 
this summer as a cemetery, even over 
at Grassland, where there’s such goin’s 
on sometimes as you never saw. Ole 
Dilsey, that useter cook for me, comes 
over an’ tells me all about the fine 
town folks that come ridin’ out in 
their carriages, an’ the music an’ the 
dancin’, an’ the big suppers she helps 
to cook. Of course they’d never think 
of invitin’ Dorinda — hold themselves 
above us, I reckon, plain country folks 
like us — not that the Gen’ral’s so 
much richer’n we are either, for that 
matter; but Dorinda don’t never seem 
to care for nothin’, an’ she’s as high 
an’ mighty as a queen. I tell her she 
ought have been bawn at Grassland 
with a silver spoon in her mouth. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 71 


’Twould just ’bout suit her to sit up 
all day in the parler with a silk dress 
on like the Gen’ral’s wife an’ that 
young lady from Louisville she saw 
last Sunday at meetin’. Her name’s 
Pryor, same as the Gen’ral’s,” she 
continued, in sudden change of tone; 
“ she’s his niece, an’ Ole Dilsey says 
she’s come to spend the summer.” 

Young Greer turned and walked 
over to the door, holding it for a 
moment half-open. His mother was 
making an unpleasant clatter among 
the dishes, and was apparently preoc- 
cupied ; but it was evident that she 
had still something more to say to him. 

“ There aint no reason why they 
should hold themselves above us. 
Eight hundred acres of blue-grass lan’ 
an’ between forty an’ fifty thousand 
dollars worth of bank stock aint to be 
sniffed at, I reckon,” she broke forth 
irritably. 


72 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

Her son was looking down at the 
carpet, studying the design as care- 
fully as if his whole future hopes 
depended upon fixing the peculiar 
blending of color and the stiff rec- 
tangular figures indelibly upon his 
remembrance. 

“ I aint complainin’ of nothin’, Har- 
vey, you understand.” She looked up 
quickly from the waiter she was load- 
ing, but could not catch her son’s eye. 
“ They’re always civil-spoken enough 
to me,” with a toss of her head. “ Just 
las’ Sunday the Gen’ral was askin’ 
Micajah when you’d be home. I 
haven’t a doubt he’d like nothin’ better 
than to have you over there time an’ 
again. An’ all the while the Gen’ral 
was talkin’ to Micajah, complimentin’ 
him on havin such a son — not that 
/ could see what Micajah ever done 
for you — I kept my eyes fixed on 
that beautiful young lady, an’ was 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 73 

sayin’ to myself, ‘If only Harvey was 
here to see her, too ! ’ ” 

But the young man, who had waited 
patiently until she had reached the 
climax toward which her monologue 
had been steadily tending, only an- 
swered with a jest and a laugh of 
complete indifference, as he left the 


room. 


IV. 


Harvey Greer walked briskly down 
the long hall and out into the dazzling 
sunlight. His hands were in his pock- 
ets and he was humming a light and 
cheerful strain with an air of uncon- 
cern; but once out of the house his 
expression underwent a change. In 
truth, he was conscious of an unreason- 
ing irritation against this paragon of 
earthly perfection whose name had 
been thus twice thrust upon his notice. 
It was not difficult for him to identify 
her as a young woman of whom he 
had already heard much in the East, 
especially from her Southern admirers 
at Princeton, four or five years before. 
The professional beauty type was not 
one in which he felt an interest. From 
all that had been told him of her, he had 

( 74 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 75 


never once experienced the smallest 
desire to form her acquaintance, or even 
to see her, and from the highly colored 
and effusive descriptions which had 
been given him, he had drawn his own 
private conclusions of a by no means 
flattering order. He pictured her as a 
big blonde woman with an affected 
baby stare and a profusion of flaxen 
hair which had no doubt been tam- 
pered with considerably. The knowl- 
edge that a being of such rare attrac- 
tions had actually come to take up 
her abode in his immediate neigh- 
borhood rather bored him, on the 
whole ; at the same time, that she had 
thus deigned to waste her sweetness, to 
a certain extent, piqued his curiosity 
and enlisted his attention. 

A young man’s violent prejudice, 
when directed against a young and 
beautiful woman, is always suggestive 
of a reaction. Armed as he was 


76 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

against her, he yet fell to wondering 
much within himself about her, and ex- 
pended a good deal more thought upon 
her than he was willing to allow. 

The belle of the White Sulphur, and 
Newport, and Bar Harbor, must have 
wearied, then, of her power, he mused. 
Like a queen, she lays aside her sceptre 
for an hour. 

It entertained him to consider for 
how many weeks it would probably de- 
light her — this masquerading in the 
rustic garb of the simple village maid. 
However, he had but little doubt that 
long before the summer had begun to 
wane he would again read of her tri- 
umphs and marvelous costumes at the 
various fashionable resorts, minutely 
described with a painstaking accuracy 
in the flowing rhetoric of newspaper 
phraseology. 

This act of retirement from the 
world for a season was the one thing 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 77 


he had ever heard of her that inter- 
ested him in the least; it seemed to 
argue for her a little more depth and 
seriousness than he fancied women of 
her stamp usually possessed. 

But he well knew that under the ex- 
isting circumstances it was most un- 
likely that he should ever have the 
opportunity of discovering for himself 
whether he had judged her correctly 
or otherwise, there being no social 
intercourse between his people and the 
family at Grassland. General Pryor 
owned one of the most distinguished 
old country-seats of the blue -grass 
region — the fertile acres which ad- 
joined his father’s farm being in- 
cluded in the estate. In Harvey’s 
innate pride and dignity it never for 
one instant occurred to him that it 
would be possible for any one to conde- 
scend to him, in any degree whatever, 
and, moreover, he was just enough to 


78 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


admit that he had no claims for civili- 
ties upon people with whom he had 
only a very distant acquaintance, and 
who, in their brief intercourse during 
his short and unfrequent visits to Ken- 
tucky, had manifested toward him 
always the unfailing courtesy of truly 
well-bred people. And so, with rather 
an impatient dismissal, and wearied of 
the subject, he turned his thoughts into 
another channel, presently deciding to 
go in quest of Dorinda, whom, after a 
considerable search, he found about an 
hour later coming in from the garden, 
with a basket of June roses on her 
arm. 

She wore a light-blue gingham gown 
and a rough straw hat, around which 
she had wreathed a garland of fresh 
flowers. There was a warm glow on 
her cheeks, and she was singing at the 
top of her strong young lungs. But at 
the sight of Harvey she broke off in- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 79 


stantly, and a look of sullen, fixed dis- 
pleasure crept into her eyes. 

“ The top o’ the mornin’ to you ! ” he 
cried, cheerfully, while still some dis- 
tance off, doffing his hat and waving it 
aloft with a grand flourish. 

As he came nearer she gave him a 
cool and sweeping glance, a glance 
which comprehended everything from 
his air of playful, good-humored indul- 
gence to the perfect cut of his light- 
gray clothes and altogether immaculate 
appearance. 

“Why, what on earth do you mean 
by sleeping away the golden hours like 
this? Dorinda, I’m astonished at you!” 
he hastened to declare, with a fine 
show of disapproval, seemingly born of 
a conscious rectitude. He had con- 
sulted his watch a moment before and 
found that it was nearly ten. 

“ I got the advantage of you this 
time,” he added, in pretended triumph 


80 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


and a most lamblike innocence ; “I had 
my breakfast long, long ago,” with an 
expansive wave of the hand, intending 
to convey the impression of an infi- 
nitely remote period of time. 

“Good morning, Harvey,” the girl 
answered, in brief disdain, leaning for 
a moment against the wooden gate 
and looking steadily away into the 
distance. 

Behind her was the shadowy back- 
ground of the quaint old-time garden, 
with its delicious little rows of evenly- 
cut flower-beds, each hemmed about 
with a delicate fringe-like border of 
blue-grass, and mingling delightful 
perfumes, subtle, evasive, in the lan- 
guid air. A long-arched, vine-covered 
trellis divided the plot into two dis- 
tinct portions, the one being given 
over to a more substantial cultivation 
in the way of vegetables and various 
kitchen plants, the other to fruits and 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 81 


flowering things — the line of demark 
ation between the requisite and the 
luxurious and merely ornamental be- 
ing thus severely drawn. 

Dorinda’s attitude was rigid and 
uncompromising. 

But the young man was not to be 
daunted. He made a low, mock rev- 
erence before her and instantly as- 
suming an expression of the most 
abject contrition, he quickly dropped 
on one knee at her side. 

“ Behold, a humble supplicant for 
your mercy,” he muttered in broken, 
melodramatic accents. 

“ I won’t behold anything of the 
kind,” Dorinda replied, stoutly, stead- 
fastly refusing to deign him so much as 
a look. “You ought to be ashamed,” 
she asserted, hotly, with a lofty supe- 
riority, “not to come down-stairs and 
eat your breakfast like other folks.” 

The young man’s face took on an 

0 


82 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

expression of the most pained sur- 
prise. 

“But I did, Dorinda, I assure you 
that is precisely what I did ; my man- 
ner of coming down-stairs and eating 
the breakfast was quite in the usual 
method, I think,” he protested in the 
same sorrowful, injured tone, as he 
continued to kneel before her. 

At this, Dorinda turned her head 
scornfully to one side, and in so do- 
ing caught a glimpse of his woeful 
countenance and tragic posture. Her 
features slightly relaxed, a sense of 
the humorous getting the better of 
her judicial sternness. 

“ Do get up, Harvey,” she insisted, 
unable to restrain a smile, but still 
quite high and mighty. 

“ I can’t,” he murmured, sadly, “ I 
can not — until you tell me I’m for- 
given.” 

With an impulsive movement, he 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 83 


reached forth and took one of her 
slim, brown hands in his, bending his 
head toward it. He gave a swift, 
upward glance into her eyes, and then 
pressed his lips upon the little soft, 
childish palm with all the air of a 
knight of old receiving his lady’s par- 
don. 

But Dorinda’s face grew suddenly 
whiter than the flowers she wore. 
She drew back quickly, shivering 
slightly, as from cold. As the young 
man sprang, laughing, to his feet, he 
caught a half-glimpse of the strained, 
intense, suffering look in her eyes, like 
some timid, wounded creature in alarm. 

Could it be that he had hurt her, he 
pondered, with his silly jesting, such 
an odd, incomprehensible little being 
as she was ? He walked for a moment 
in silence at her side, feeling unpleas- 
antly conscious — through the medium 
of that subtle, mysterious communica- 


84 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

tion which is as an added sense to all 
highly organized temperaments — of 
the awkwardness that had sprung up 
between them. 

The girl’s head was averted, the del- 
icate chin held high ; she moved with 
a firm, proud step. Moreover, she 
seemed to feel herself under no neces- 
sity to attempt to keep up any show of 
conversation, returning mere monosyl- 
labic replies to her companion’s ques- 
tionings, and manifesting only the 
meagerest recognition of his presence. 

Harvey Greer was somewhat in the 
habit of studying the people about him, 
but he found Dorinda altogether baf- 
fling. 

Presently he noted that she was 
quickening her footsteps with the evi- 
dent intention of escaping him. But 
why should 'she do that? he consid- 
ered. Surely he must have offended 
her in some way unknown to himself. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 85 


He could see that she was sensitive 
and imperious, with but little self-con- 
trol. But it never seemed possible for 
him to allow himself to be aroused 
into the smallest feeling of anger 
against her, no matter how petulant 
she should be with him. When they 
had reached the house, passing from 
under the thick cluster of evergreen 
trees and the rows of flowering shrubs 
at the rear of the building, Harvey 
planted himself on the door-steps quite 
in her way, with some feeble hope of 
restoring things to a more comfortable 
and friendly basis between them. 

“ Don't go inside, Dorinda ; how can 
you on a day like this ? ” he cried. 

But Dorinda only shook her head 
with obstinate determination in most 
provoking fashion. 

“I must,” she replied steadily, firmly 
closing her lips. “ I have all my work 
to do,” she condescended to explain, 


80 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

but with a slight tremor in her voice 
seeing that he kept his eyes fixed 
upon her in a perplexed, silent scrutiny. 
She was looking away to a distant point 
where a flock of sheep was browsing 
peacefully on the hillside. Shifting 
from time to time uneasily under his 
close, prolonged observation, she 
turned, all at once, and ran quickly up 
the steps, then paused, faced about, 
and stood for an instant, hesitating, 
irresolute, crimsoning painfully. 

The young man appeared to take no 
notice of her embarrassment. 

“Your work?” he inquired, incredu- 
lously, merely trying to force her into 
conversation and a possible betrayal of 
the cause of her very palpable and 
unflattering desire to avoid him. “And 
may I be allowed to ask the nature of 
this most imperative duty ? Don’t you 
think it might be postponed for a little 
while, say until this afternoon or to- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 87 


morrow, even? Perhaps I shall not 
bother you to-morrow again — but to- 
day,” dreamily watching a flight of 
birds far up in the cloudless sky, and 
suddenly letting his voice become soft 
and persuasively tender as he brought 
his glance slowly back to the little un- 
certain figure at his side, “to-day I 
want you, Dorinda,” he pleaded, very 
earnestly, yet not without a faint shade 
of triumph in his manner, as of one 
whose cause is already almost won. 

“ Do look at those deep shadows over 
there in that grim old woods, and think 
what a morning we might have to- 
gether ! ” he cried, energetically and 
with boyish warmth. “ Seriously, can’t 
you put it off — this work, whatever it 
is, for a little while, at least? ” 

Dorinda’s eyes wandered pensively 
away in the direction he indicated, 
past the orchard and garden and the 
long fields of rustling corn, far away 


88 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

to the dim, mysterious forests beyond. 
The day was growing intensely hot, 
there was a stifling oppression in the 
air, and a kind of brazen fury in the 
glare of the sun. 

The thought of cool, shadowy re- 
treats and delicious, soft-flowing waters 
came to her in an alluring, irresist- 
ible reminder. Her throat was dry and 
parched, and she felt a nervous trem- 
bling seize her from the blinding heat. 

“Yes,” she admitted, slowly, in a 
very low voice, “ I could; I was only 
going to sew a little. I might put it 
off until this afternoon.” 

Harvey was quick to make the most 
of his opportunity ; his sensitive ear 
detected the softened note in her 
voice; his eyes, still searching her 
face, saw the signs of relenting, the 
sudden yielding of the tense form 
which seemed to sway and bend to- 
ward him, as if held by some strange 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 89 


influence she was struggling to with- 
stand. 

“What a dear thing you are, Do- 
rinda!” he exclaimed, instantly assum- 
ing that she had already given her 
assent. “ But really, if you had any 
idea of how much I want you, you 
wouldn’t stand there all day letting me 
beg you, like a hungry dog, for just one 
little crumb of your notice.” 

At his words, slightly aggrieved and 
chiding, the hot color flamed into her 
cheeks anew, staining her throat even, 
in a crimson rush of emotion. The 
same painful shivering swept over her ; 
her lips trembled, but were silent. She 
gave a swift, half-frightened look about 
her, as if meditating flight ; then, sud- 
denly, her hands fell limply to her side, 
as involuntarily she turned her face 
toward him, swayed by his dominating 
power, and let her eyes for an instant 
sink deep into his. 


90 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


“Do you want me, Harvey?” she 
asked, very humbly. 

“Yes, dear, I do want you very 
much,” he said. 

Laughing still, he bent his head and 
met her timid, childish, beseeching 
look of eagerness and self-mistrust. 
He did not mean to look at her as a 
lover — nothing was farther from his 
thoughts than that there should be 
any vestige of love-making between 
them, and yet, something in his glance, 
something of which he himself was 
unconscious, perhaps, caused her to 
draw back from him with quickly low- 
ered eyelids, but radiant, tremulous, 
and very lovely in her maidenly re- 
serve, her eyes flashing beneath their 
thick lashes. 

Then, without a word or protest, 
she turned and followed him whither- 
soever he chose to direct, heedless of 
the fact that the roses she had just 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 91 


gathered were left to wither and die 
on the doorsteps ’neath a scorching 
sun ; unmindful of all the hard les- 
son she had been striving to commit 
through the whole long night before, 
as she tossed restless, wide-eyed, and 
wretched in her bitter humiliation ; 
forgetful of all and everything what- 
ever save the one supreme, absolutely 
thrilling, soul-absorbing thought that 
she was with him, alone — and at his 
wish. 


V. 


The room was spacious, cool, and 
delightful, presenting an airy pictur- 
esqueness of arrangement and a sug- 
gestion of luxuriousness charmingly 
combined, the effect being, perhaps, 
due more to the subtle atmosphere 
created by its occupant than to any 
inherent grace or elegance of appoint- 
ment. 

The hangings were all of a delicate 
shade of blue, relieved by the snow- 
iest of muslin embroideries about the 
massive, old-fashioned bedstead, and 
the wide gilt-framed mirror opposite. 
Rugs were spread here and there 
upon the polished floor. There were 
a few good etchings and water-colors 
on the walls; and everywhere quaint 
pieces of old mahogany, with ckiw 

( 92 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 93 


feet and carved legs of exquisite work- 
manship, which Margaret Pryor de- 
lighted in as ancestral relics in which 
she had an interest, if no further right 
of proprietorship than that they were 
allowed to adorn her surroundings 
during her summer sojourn. 

It is interesting to note the character- 
istic stamp which certain women, if not 
all, lend to their apartments, even dur- 
ing the briefest period of possession. 
If Margaret had been placed in a cabin 
in a wilderness she would have endeav- 
ored at once to make it look like the 
abode of a princess in exile. In her 
very appearance there was always the 
association of something rare and 
costly. Rugs of the finest oriental 
weaving, delicate bits of bric-a-brac 
and china from beyond the seas, to- 
gether with the choicest works of art, 
seemed only a fitting accompaniment 
for her brilliant blonde loveliness. 


94 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


As she lay stretched upon her couch 
in her loosely clinging mull draperies, 
her bare arms thrown back of her head, 
her long hair all unwound and almost 
entirely enveloping her form, she was 
like an enchanting, gorgeous, indolent 
sultana taking her ease among her 
cushions and laces. 

The room was darkened to keep out 
the afternoon sunlight, which, impa- 
tient of such restraint, yet forced an 
entrance here and there, resting, like 
the kiss of a lover, upon her firm, white 
throat and gleaming arms, which but 
shone to a more dazzling fairness in 
the glow, just as certain natures attain 
a more marble-like purity beneath the 
scorching touch of passion. 

In her hand she held a letter bearing 
a foreign postmark, but the seal was as 
yet unbroken. 

It was evident that she felt but little 
curiosity in regards to its contents, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 95 

since it had remained since yesterday 
just where she had placed it beneath 
her pillow, and had only accidentally 
been brought forth a few moments be- 
fore in her restless tossings to and fro. 
It was also apparent, as she toyed with 
it in abstracted fashion, that the hand- 
writing was entirely familiar to her, for 
a peculiar smile flitted from time to 
time across her features, followed by an 
expression of weariness and indiffer- 
ence. 

Presently, with an impatient move- 
ment, she turned and, raising herself 
slightly on one elbow, tore apart the 
thin envelope and spread out the 
closely written sheets, pushing back 
with one large, white, perfect hand 
the golden strands of hair that fell 
about her face. 

There was a most formal and impres- 
sive opening to the letter; set, stereo- 
typed phrases to mark a beginning; 


96 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

then, with a bold, headlong, spasmodic 
plunge, the writer seemed to have 
hurled himself into his subject, inspired 
by a despairing sink or swim idea 
which, under the existing circum- 
stances, Margaret found most amusing. 
She even laughed a little very softly 
to herself as she read, leaning forward 
on her elbow. Plainly the young man 
had only succeeded in destroying his 
last chance for her favor when he 
resorted to letter-writing as a means 
of conveying the ardor of his devotion. 
And here, be it remarked, by way of 
parenthesis, he was not the first and 
only lover to meet with an unsuccess- 
ful wooing through an incautious 
attempt in this most hazardous form 
of courtship. Margaret was one of 
those women who attach, perhaps, an 
undue significance to the general 
appearance of a letter and its method 
of expression. She could not recall 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 97 


that she had ever received a love- 
letter of any kind or description — 
and her experience in that line had 
been rather unusual — that had not 
more or less astounded her by the 
author’s lack of tact and appreciation 
of a woman’s nature. 

But in this instance, under all the 
clumsily framed sentences, ludicrously 
interspersed here and there with sun- 
dry boyish slang expressions character- 
istic of the writer, now and again a 
sentence caught her eye which seemed 
to contain the ring of true feeling, and 
which brought a look of gravity into 
her eyes. This momentary seriousness, 
however, was altogether impersonal ; 
she had read the letter from beginning 
to end entirely unmoved. 

When she had finally refolded it and 
restored it to its envelope, she lay for 
some moments very quietly framing 

her reply. After all, there seemed little 
7 


98 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

left for her to say to Mr. Edward Leeds 
Van Ousten, at present amusing himself 
in Paris, since she had no less than half 
a dozen times already given him her 
final, irrevocable answer. Moreover, it 
appeared to her unpardonably out of 
taste that he should presume thus far 
with her, since she had made her 
meaning so plain. There is an in- 
stinct of cruelty slumbering in the 
hearts of all women alike, even the 
tenderest and most sincere. But Mar- 
garet Pryor was not of the type that 
could be readily described as tender- 
hearted — though she had often felt 
the tears spring to her eyes when she 
had accidentally put her foot upon a 
flower — neither was she altogether sin- 
cere, being in character somewhat elu- 
sive and inconsistent. Thus far in 
her existence, emotion had taken the 
form of sentiment merely. Further- 
more, she was, to a considerable degree, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 99 


romantic, with but little appreciation of 
the offering of a commonplace affec- 
tion. 

At the same time she was by no 
means insensible of the worth, from a 
worldly standpoint, of what she had 
disdained. The writer of the letter was 
a wealthy young New Yorker, whom 
she had met the previous winter while 
visiting friends in the East. Social 
importance, a career of great brilliancy 
and scope could be hers, if she so de- 
sired, and yet something within herself, 
some incomprehensible force, which 
had not as yet been crushed, made the 
possession of mere material things 
seem wholly insufficient. 

The only effect of her lover’s missive 
was to arouse an old restlessness which 
had been growing upon her of late. 
She felt that she had finally come to a 
time in her life when there was a ne- 
cessity for some kind of a change, even 


100 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

though it should be to a worse condi- 
tion, as if she had breathed up all the 
oxygen in the air about her, and was 
in consequence stifled and oppressed. 
She felt a tremendous striving in her 
toward some great crisis of awaken- 
ing, a longing for the opportunity to 
feel to the utmost, to meet life face to 
face in all its reality and tragic inter- 
pretation, to know whether or not she 
were able to love, to suffer, and, if 
need be, to die for the sake of one 
supreme end — a deep, eternal devo- 
tion. For the extent of her own pow- 
ers had not been tested, and thus far 
she remained a mystery, even to her- 
self. 

After a time she rose languidly from 
her pillows and began to move softly 
about the room, pausing mechanically 
now and again to straighten some or- 
nament or picture, the delicate curves 
of her lips compressed in thought. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY 101 


The door of her bedroom was ajar, 
and from the distance a voice floated to 
her, a woman’s voice crooning a sweet 
and drowsy air, as if hushing a little 
child to sleep. Margaret waited an in- 
stant to listen, holding in one hand the 
folds of the curtain, and leaning her 
head in a tired fashion against the side 
of the door. The voice continued sing- 
ing, but in snatches, breaking off now 
and then as if one had paused to bend 
over a little cot to smooth a stray curl 
into place, or to murmur some tender 
word, unintelligible except to baby 
ears. There was a strange allurement 
in the voice, though it possessed but 
meager power, and its little twilight 
slumber-song sounded as sweet as some 
long-forgotten harmony to the jaded 
ears of the woman of the world who 
had heard all the classic music of Eu- 
rope and her own country. Margaret 
moved a step or two into the hall. But 


102 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

the song came more fitfully now, and 
then finally died away. She could hear 
Mrs. Pryor moving in a subdued way 
about the room as she approached the 
nursery. 

“ Ada,” she said, standing an instant 
in the doorway and taking in the 
pretty scene, “ how I wish you could 
sing me to sleep just as you have done 
little Elsie ; I am very tired.” 

At the first sound of a step upon the 
carpetless floor, a plump, dark-haired 
woman in a becoming organdie tea- 
gown much befrilled, with tiny bows 
of pink ribbon up and down the front, 
turned with a pleasant smile of wel- 
come from a fairy-like bed in one 
corner of the room about which she 
had been arranging the curtains. She 
was rather a pretty woman, with cer- 
tain matronly little airs that were 
delightful. The fact that she was 
some thirty years younger than her 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 103 


husband perhaps added to the thought 
of youthfulness which one always asso- 
ciated with her. Her mouth, that 
most characteristic feature, was wide 
and sweet, revealing rows of rarely 
beautiful teeth. She came forward to 
meet Margaret, cautiously pointing one 
finger over her shoulder in the direc- 
tion of the little sleeper, smiling still, 
and silent. 

Margaret sat down in a low chair. 
“ I am very tired,” she repeated, pres- 
ently, letting her hands fall wearily to 
her side. 

Mrs. Pryor regarded her for an in- 
stant with the amiable, patient scrutiny 
with which she would have attended 
the woes of Edward or May or little 
Elsie. 

“Tired, are you, dear?” she said, 
sympathetically. “ I was afraid the 
country would seem dull to you ; in 
fact I knew it would, after all the gay- 


104 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ety you have had. But won’t you let 
me ask some people? You know I 
wanted to invite a few friends, but you 
wouldn’t let me. I had arranged a 
very charming house-party for the 
tenth. We were to have a poet, and an 
artist, and a young novelist — Kentuck- 
ians are becoming famous, you know 
— and a dozen or more besides who 
are not famous, but very pleasant peo- 
ple to have in one’s house. Really I 
don’t wonder you find it lonely here. 
You need variety, every one needs 
variety. You can’t think how dreary 
it all seemed to me at first. I was 
simply wretched if the house was not 
filled with people all the time. You 
know the first year after my marriage 
we spent the entire winter here, and I 
almost lost my mind. But the sum- 
mers were very nearly as bad, at first. 
I think it was the sound of the crickets 
and katydids that drove me to distrac- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 105 


tion. I could never make General 
Pryor understand. He said he liked 
the sound. And, do you know, now 
that I have grown accustomed to it, I 
don’t so much mind ; there is a great 
deal in getting accustomed to things,” 
she added with a sigh. “ But I think it 
is the children that make everything 
seem different to me. Sometimes I can 
believe that the whole face of the earth 
is changed.” 

She threw a tender, beautiful glance 
toward the corner of the room where a 
little brown curly head lay peacefully 
on its pillow. 

Margaret looked up quickly. 

“ Perhaps that does make the differ- 
ence,” she answered, softly. 

“ It makes all the difference in the 
world,” the elder woman asserted, con- 
fidently. 

“ But I am not quite sure,” Margaret 
continued, “if it would make all the dif- 


106 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ference to me. May be I am not a truly 
womanly woman.” 

“ My dear, you are one of the most 
womanly women I have ever known ; 
think how the children all adore you, 
and how lovely you always are to them. 
But how is it possible that you should 
understand some things?” And again 
her eyes wandered away to the corner 
with that look in them which holds such 
boundless, wonderful depths of mean- 
ing. 

Margaret made a sudden gesture, 
and leaned forward. 

“ Ada,” she said in a low voice, “ I 
am going to ask you a question. For- 
give me if I hurt you and do not an- 
swer unless you wish.’ ’ 

Mrs. Pryor shrank back a little with 
an instinctive movement. Something 
in Margaret’s face caused her heart to 
quicken its beats. It had beat more 
calmly of late, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 107 


“ I will tell you anything that you 
wish,” she answered, yet looking stead, 
ily away. 

“ Then tell me this : Do you think, 
if a woman should make a compromise, 
— I mean in reference to marriage,” 
hesitating, and choosing her words 
with difficulty, “ there could ever come 
a time when she would not look back to 
the old illusions and broken dreams 
with longing and regret; that life could 
really be worth the living without love, 
given unreservedly and with all the 
strength of one’s nature? Do you 
think—” 

She broke off abruptly, fearful lest 
she might have gone too far. She was 
breathing hurriedly, and her eyes had 
grown dark, luminous, and very earn- 
est. 

Mrs. Pryor rose and walked over to 
the window. She pulled aside the 
muslin curtain and stood for some 


108 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

moments, without replying, looking 
down upon the broad acres of richest 
blue grass stretching out before her. 
She had grown very pale and there was 
a sadness unutterable written on her 
features. It was a look which one 
woman seldom allows another to wit- 
ness, through pride and instinctive 
reserve. But she knew that Margaret 
had spoken thus to her from no idle or 
unworthy impulse, and, moreover, with 
her she had never at any time in that 
intimacy which had so long existed 
between them attempted concealment. 
Presently she turned. Her voice was 
tremulous when she spoke, and her lips 
quivered ; a pallor had spread over her 
face ; she looked no longer young with- 
out the accompaniment of her usual airy 
grace of manner. 

“At first,” she whispered huskily 
drawing a step nearer, “ at first — ” 

There was a fluttering movement of 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 109 


outstretched arms from the cot in the 
corner, a sleepy, lisping call, and Mrs. 
Pryor, with a little cry of delight and a 
look of radiant motherhood, gathered 
her baby into her arms. 


VI. 


If Harvey had really counted upon 
Dorinda as a companion during the 
weeks of his vacation, as he had said, he 
was beginning to discover not only that 
there were forces in her the most puz- 
zling and contradictory, but also that 
she was a very uncertain dependence. 
There were times, when for no reason 
that he was able to divine, she would 
meet his suggestions for their mutual 
enlivenment with a sullen, point-blank 
refusal which seemed based upon no 
grounds of offense whatever. His man- 
ner toward her at these times, if wholly 
irreproachable in its intent, was yet of 
a nature too gentle, too courteously 
calm in its perfect self-control, to bring 
about the friendly unconstraint for 

which he strove. Perhaps the fact that 
( 110 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. Ill 


he always met her childish outbreaks 
with an air of pained surprise, but with- 
out the smallest show of resentment, 
did more than anything toward bring- 
ing her into a state of docility. That 
recognition of a reserved power, the iron 
hand in the velvet glove, to a certain 
species of femininity is generally effect- 
ive. And it is the proudest of women 
always whose subjection is the most 
complete. At all events, the rebellious 
flashes which often a mere word or 
tone of voice unexpectedly called forth 
became more rarely indulged in, al- 
though there were still whole days 
when she avoided him so successfully 
that he could not obtain so much as a 
glimpse of the wayward little being, the 
fluttering wings of whose soul seemed 
ever beating against some invisible bars 
of restraint, and whose impulses, as 
likely to be of the most heroic order of 
self-sacrifice as of a petulant exaction, 


112 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

afforded the charm of a constant 
variety. 

It was on such an occasion, when she 
had left him to his own resources, that 
one day, several weeks after his re- 
turn, during a long ramble, he finally 
directed his steps aimlessly through 
the well-remembered vistas of the 
dense oak forest adjoining his father’s 
farm. 

It had been a delight of his child- 
hood to ponder upon the story that had 
often been told him of this land. The 
tradition was that, long ago, the an- 
cestor of the Pryors, who first owned 
that immense tract of several thousand 
acres of which the “ Oak Woods ” was 
a part, had pacified the Indians he 
found upon it for the loss of their 
happy hunting ground by the gift of 
an old rifle ; the later historic knowl- 
edge of land-grants from Virginia, by 
which means only such vast posses- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 113 


sions could have been obtained, served 
in no way to detract from the pictur- 
esqueness of the incident. Here, as a 
boy, under these rustling- trees he had 
spent whole days of blissful content, 
devouringly reading one of Cooper’s 
novels and fancying that behind every 
bush a red-skin lurked. 

He smiled a little sadly to himself 
for those vanished hours. Perhaps he 
had come to realize that the danger 
lurking behind bushes was a reality, 
and no longer a pleasing figment of the 
imagination. 

When he had reached a point where 
a little stream ran through the wood, 
just beneath a thick copse on the hill- 
side, he suddenly paused, and all the 
wild enchantment of the forest, shadow- 
haunted, breeze-stirred, burst upon his 
senses. 

A stillness inexpressible was over 

everything. When now and again an 
8 


114 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY 

acorn fell to the ground the sound 
bore a ghostly, ominous suggestion so 
that one involuntarily started in alarm. 
The slanting rays of sunlight pene- 
trating the grove seemed only to 
heighten the pervading twilight, and 
seldom was there a foot-fall to break 
the silence of its remoteness. The 
farm-hands moving to and fro had no 
occasion to pass through it, and it had 
been allowed to remain, as it had been 
for countless ages, undisturbed. Har- 
vey was just beginning to enjoy that 
agreeable sensation of complete isola- 
tion, rarely experienced in our rest- 
less, latter-day civilization, when a wo- 
man’s voice joined with a child’s shrill 
treble broke upon his ears. 

Amazed that any one had penetrated 
to the retreat, and not a little annoyed 
at the interruption, he turned and 
moved in the direction of the voices. 
He had only a short distance to go. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 115 


The disturbers of his serenity were 
plainly visible through the trees. 

A few yards beyond, partially con- 
cealed by the dense undergrowth, a 
child of six or seven had climbed from 
the low crotch of an old tree into an 
excellent swing formed by the wild 
grapevines that grew around it. Near 
the bole of the tree a tall young woman 
in a white gown was standing, alter- 
nately remonstrating with the boy for 
his daring and sharing in his merri- 
ment. 

Presently she uttered a quick cry of 
fright and held out both her arms in en- 
treaty, at the same time darting a 
startled glance over her shoulder, hear- 
ing the approaching footsteps. But 
her alarm only called forth a gleeful 
shout of triumph from the child, who, 
having now abandoned his swing, was 
trying his prowess in another direction 
and soon scrambled completely out of 


116 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

reach at the imminent risk of life and 
limb. 

Seeing his danger, and fearful lest 
she might cause him a misstep by the 
utterance of so much as a word, the 
young woman was standing speechless 
and aghast as Harvey drew near. He 
came quickly forward, realizing the sit- 
uation at a glance. 

“Allow me,” he said, briefly, with a 
hurried bow. In another moment he 
had deposited the wriggling and ireful 
young gentleman in safety at her feet. 

His action in the matter was so very 
prompt, marked with such a pleasing 
touch of humorous appreciation and at 
the same time so carelessly free from 
all embarrassment, she regarded him 
for an instant with a veiled curiosity 
and interest. Moreover, he was unmis- 
takably a gentleman, as was evident 
from his bearing and appearance. 

But as she lifted her face, which all 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 117 


the while had been held slightly to one 
side, occupied as she was with the child, 
and turned smiling, grateful, and very 
gracious toward him, the light, laugh- 
ing speech upon his lips died suddenly 
away and a strange look crept into her 
eyes. 

It was for him a moment of bewil- 
derment, of intensified emotion. But 
where had he seen that face before ? 

All at once the dim old forest seemed 
to fade away from his sight and he 
beheld himself in the Metropolitan 
Opera House in New York listening to 
one of the Wagner operas. As a re- 
ality the brilliant auditorium with its 
tiers upon tiers of faces, the women in 
their dazzling evening toilets, the 
twinkling of jewels, and the fluttering of 
many fans, rose before him in perfect 
distinctness. The sound of the orches- 
tra was in his ears and his heart was 
beating tremendously under the glance 


118 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

of a woman’s eyes — the eyes of the 
woman he now beheld burning deep 
into his very soul. 

It was but for the briefest instant — 
impelled by some irresistible magnetic 
force which swayed them both — that 
she had turned toward him, a total 
stranger, that night in New York, as 
he suddenly lifted his head and saw 
her sitting in one of the neighboring 
boxes, marvelously lovely in her white 
gown, without ornament of any kind. 
Like the golden - haired visions of his 
dreams and seen through mist, she ap- 
peared to him with her parted lips and 
gleaming arms. With a kind of sav- 
age triumph he recalled the sudden 
stirring of the pulses he had known 
when .she met his glance and his eyes 
looked deep into her eyes, as she invol- 
untarily lifted them to his amid the 
clashing of musical instruments and 
the uproar of applause when the cur. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 119 

tain fell. What mattered it, if flushing 
painfully, in another second she had 
turned proudly away. Through some 
power, outside and beyond them both, 
her soul had responded to his and 
had yielded to him, and he felt in his 
strength and victory, by the divine 
right of recognition, that she was eter- 
nally his in spite of whatever wind of 
destiny should waft her from him. 

With startling recollection there now 
returned to him a stanza from Brown- 
ing’s “ Cristina ” which that night 
seemed to him to be written just for 
them : 

“ Doubt you if, in some such moment, as she fixed 
me, she felt clearly, 

Ages past the soul existed, here an age ’tis rest- 
ing merely, 

And hence fleets again for ages : while the true 
end sole and single, 

It stops here for is, this love way, with some other 
soul to mingle ?” 


And how those other lines had 


120 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

tangled themselves in his thoughts as 
he strode out into the darkness ! — 

“There are flashes struck from midnights, there 
are fire-flames noondays kindle, 

Whereby piled-up honors perish, whereby swollen 
ambitions dwindle, 

While just this or that poor impulse, which for 
once had play unstifled, 

Seems the sole work of a life-time that away the 
rest have trifled.” 

But all that had happened four years 
before, on the evening before his de- 
parture for Europe. Since that time 
she had never once crossed his path, her 
very name even being unknown to him. 
Gradually it had come about that she 
haunted his thoughts and fired his 
imagination as an elusive being, forever 
beyond his grasp, shadowy, mystical, a 
creature of his own wild fantasy, an 
impalpable illusion. Now that she 
stood at last actually before him in the 
flesh, his brain reeled and his tongue 
refused him utterance. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 121 


Margaret’s low voice was sounding in 
his ears; but speech seemed only use- 
less. The forest was a place of enchant- 
ment. The beautiful, golden-haired 
woman, the realization of an ideal called 
up by some magic art. His heart beat 
as if trying to leap to her, and all his 
pulses throbbed into one great beat of 
■joy. The requisite, comonplace words 
he must offer seemed almost a desecra- 
tion. 

“Will you permit me to introduce 
myself, Miss Pryor?” he managed to 
say at length. “ My name is Greer — 
Harvey Greer,” he added, in slight 
hesitation. 

Margaret was looking at him with an 
intent, thoughtful expression in her 
eyes. 

“ I think,” she said, presently, grow- 
ing restive under his gaze, and putting 
up one hand to her head with a puzzled 
gesture as of one trying to recall an 


122 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


impression, painful in its dimness, “ I 
must surely have met you before, Mr. 
Greer — somewhere — some time — can 
you help me to remember — or have 
you, also, forgotten ? ” 

The question, so lightly asked, roused 
him as by a rude shock. 

Had then ‘the world’s honors, in 
derision, trampled out the light for- 
ever ’ ? 

With a certain bitterness the lines 
came back to him again. 

“Oh, I remember now,” she cried, 
quickly, a hot flush stealing over her 
face. I saw you at the opera one night 
in New York four years ago. We were 
listening to ‘ Lohengrin,’ and those 
stupid people applauded at the wrong 
time. I could never forget your expres- 
sion, as I accidentally caught your eye ; 
you looked all the disapprobation that I 
felt. It was quite a long, long time ago 
— four years — have you forgotten ? ” 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 123 


But the young man was thinking of 
“Cristina,” and for a moment he did 
not reply. 


VII. 


He could never afterwards recall what 
he said to her, if indeed he spoke any 
word whatever, when suddenly, with a 
swift movement, he threw back his head 
and looked her boldly in the eyes with 
a slow, searching gaze which seemed to 
toss aside by a single stroke all the bar- 
riers of formality she would raise be- 
tween them. 

But she met his glance unflinchingly, 
her lips slightly parted in that serene, 
beautiful smile of hers which enthralled 
and bewildered like some magic 
draught from the strange mist-wine. 

When, through an inferred permis- 
sion, merely suggested by voice and 
manner, he found himself, a moment 
later, walking by her side, their steps 
tending out of the forest, the child 

( 124 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 125 


flitting on ahead, now in pursuit of a 
bright-winged butterfly, now pausing 
to gather a wild flower near the path, 
he still felt under the influence of a 
dream the awakening from which he 
longed to postpone. Presently he be- 
gan to realize that there was some- 
thing permeating in the power of her 
presence, and was dumbly conscious 
that the wild, poetic fancies he was 
weaving about her would one day 
cling to him and burn, like the touch 
of fire. 

He did not dare to trust himself 
again to look at her, except briefly 
from time to time, as she moved in 
her calm perfection at his side, self- 
poised and stately as a young goddess 
who yet deigns to be gracious. 

There was about her that subtlest 
form of allurement a woman may ever 
possess: The art to interest and baffle, 
through an intimation of a certain 


126 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

loftiness of ideal in which there is 
always implied less of coldness than 
of pride. 

“Yet she could love, those eyes declare, 
Were men but nobler than they are,” 

was a thought, which, in one degree 
or another, she seemed invariably to 
inspire, and in which lay her greatest 
strength. Moreover, there was in her 
manner something crystal-like and re- 
mote in its tranquility, and added to 
this she had the dignity to clothe her 
lightest speech with a tinge of subtlety 
in which there always lurked a hint 
of a deeper meaning than the words 
conveyed. Harvey felt this when she 
spoke. 

“ Do you know what I was thinking 
of a moment ago, Mr. Greer, when you 
suddenly sprang out of space to my 
assistance, like the hero of a novel ? I 
was thinking how odd it would be if 
such a thing should really happen. It 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 127 

is especially strange that the idea 
should have crossed my brain just at 
that particular instant when you ap- 
peared, since these woods are my fa- 
vorite haunt, and never before have I 
encountered here a human being.” 

“ At least I can have the gratification, 
then, of knowing that my presence 
upon the scene was not wholly inop- 
portune and unexpected,” Harvey an- 
swered slowly with the utmost serious- 
ness. 

“ Are you really a hero, Mr. Greer? ” 
she asked with a delightful assumption 
of naivete, regarding him a trifle curi- 
ously still, as if he had literally sprung 
out of space, as she had said. It was 
evident that she was finding it rather 
a difficult matter to account for him, 
but her breeding was too excellent for 
her to seem to desire any information 
in regard to his identity which he him- 
self did not choose to offer. “ Are you 


128 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

really a hero?” she asked, lifting her 
lovely eyes to his. Harvey smiled a 
little at first at the inquiry; but he 
grew, all at once, very grave as he 
answered : 

“ Perhaps I could be, under a certain 
inspiration,” he said quietly, meeting 
her eyes. 

She turned quickly aside for a mo- 
ment to extricate her white gown, which 
was of. a thin and airy material, and 
continually catching in some thorn or 
bramble. Under the thick foliage of 
the wood there was no need of protec- 
tion from the sun, and she had removed 
her large garden hat, the blue ribbons 
of which she was twisting thoughtfully 
in her fingers. Now and then a stray 
beam, darting through the branches, 
fell upon her uncovered head, and 
transformed it into a shining mass with 
its Midas touch. Perhaps the con- 
sciousness of this effect in some way 
provoked her next remark. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY, 129 


“Do you remember,” she mused, 
“ the old legend of the statue made of 
clay that stood for an hour in the sun- 
light, and so seemed purest gold? I 
saw a very pretty application of the 
idea once to the ‘gilded hour’ of a 
lover, ‘ the hero but to one,’ ” she added 
with a sudden transposition. 

“ But he was not a true lover, he was 
as counterfeit as the statue, if he were 
content with merely the glory of an 
hour,” Harvey broke in. 

There was a lingering note of sweet- 
ness in her voice. 

“ It would be something to have lived, 
if only for an hour,” she said, dreamily, 
looking beyond him to where the sun- 
light slept on the crest of the hill. 
For a moment he was silent. But how 
her words thrilled and roused him ! He 
was young, and she was so very beauti- 
ful ; what wonder that his pulses throb- 
bed and his heart-beats quickened? 

9 


130 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ Why do you speak as if the limita- 
tion were inevitable?” he cried, hotly. 
“Suppose the sun shines on in all its 
strength — throughout the whole long 
perfect day — suppose — ” 

A peculiar smile flitted for an instant 
across her features. 

“ The sunlight always dies.” 

Then, as if realizing that she had al- 
lowed the conversation to drift farther 
away than was becoming from the con- 
ventionality it is necessary to maintain 
with an entire stranger, she changed 
the subject quite abruptly, at the same 
time calling to her side the child, who 
was only a few yards ahead, and who 
came running up, roguish and breath- 
less. He had been catching butterflies, 
and held one gingerly between his taut 
thumb and forefinger as he drew near. 
Margaret bent her head over the 
chubby brown fist. 

“ Oh, you hurt it — the poor little but- 


VOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 131 


terfly — see, you have broken its wing ! ” 
she exclaimed, chidingly. 

“ This one in this hand’s deader 
still,” lisped the boy, triumphantly, ex- 
tending the palm of his left hand, in 
which the dead butterly lay. 

Margaret turned away with a little 
look of pain. 

“ How cruel all children are ! ” she 
said, dropping the small hand. Con- 
scious of the triteness of the remark, 
the young man put in, tentatively, “If 
I have not been misinformed, there is 
another class of beings who have also 
something of a reputation in that 
line.” 

Margaret looked steadily at him for a 
moment — with the look which seemed 
to read and comprehend so much in the 
clearness of its insight. But she chose 
to appear to misunderstand his refer- 
ence. 

“Oh, of course; children are only 


132 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

men in miniature,” she replied, quietly 
parrying the thrust. 

“ To-day this little fellow breaks a 
butterfly’s wing, and twenty or thirty 
years hence, perhaps, he will break a 
woman’s heart — who knows ? ” 

“ But might you not reverse the idea, 
and be even more prophetic?” 

“ Men’s hearts never break,” she an- 
swered, with the same fine, cool smile 
of dismissal with which he was becom- 
ing familiar. 

They had reached the gate leading 
into the grounds surrounding the 
house, glimpses of which could be seen 
through the trees. It was a large, 
square, red-brick structure of the co- 
lonial style of architecture, with that 
pleasing suggestion of solid respecta- 
bility and antiquity which most houses 
of this order present. Harvey had al- 
ways admired the place as one of those 
grand old estates of Kentucky which 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 133 


are either slowly falling- into decay 
or changing hands to unappreciative 
owners on account of the continual 
shifting of fortunes from one man’s 
purse to that of another. 

“ It is truly a delightful old place,” 
he exclaimed with enthusiasm, regard- 
ing it with the look of curiosity with 
which one surveys a well-remembered 
object after a long absence. He held 
the gate open for her to enter, bow- 
ing low as she passed ; but he himself 
paused on the outside and came no 
farther as the wide portal swung on 
its hinges. 

“ I can remember what an imposing 
structure I thought it when I used to 
pass it as a boy, hunting in the woods 
below,” he Continued, still looking up 
the avenue. 

Margaret glanced at him in surprise ; 
she had not thought of him as a resi- 
dent of the neighborhood. During the 


134 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

course of their conversation, after vari- 
ous conjectures, she had finally arrived 
at a conclusion in regard to him which 
she considered very plausible. She 
supposed him to be, judging rom one 
thing and another, one of the young 
literati from the East, who was probably 
making a tour of the Blue-Grass Region 
with the view of preparing an article 
for one of the magazines. She thought 
he had quite the look of a man who 
might write articles for the magazines. 
Moreover, she was acquainted with the 
general character of the population of 
the county, and there was positively 
no one, so far as she knew, who an- 
swered to the description of the schol- 
arly-looking young man whose clothes 
bore the unmistakable sfamp of a 
London tailor, and whose bearing and 
manner was that of a thorough man 
of the world. It seemed odd to her 
that she had never met him, or even 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 135 

heard his name mentioned in her 
uncle’s house, where such broad hospi- 
tality was extended. She, however, felt 
sure there must be some explanation 
of this. 

Following the direction of his eyes, 
she fancied that she interpreted his 
thought. 

“It is almost a conversion to the 
law of primogeniture, isn’t it, the fact 
that so many of the beautiful old 
places of Kentucky are passing out of 
the name ? It would really grieve me, 
very seriously, if my uncle should ever 
sell this place. With all our boasted 
preference for the free democratic 
principles of our country, I am not 
sure but that, with some of us, there 
are not certain fixed, inborn, aristo- 
cratic tendencies which can never be 
rooted out.” 

The young man winced a little be- 
neath her words. How thoroughly 


136 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

patrician she was ! And in that mo- 
ment there came to him the first 
painful realization of his life that the 
origin from which he had sprung 
might prove a stumbling-block in the 
way of gaining his desires. 

Margaret could not fail to see the 
shadow that flitted across his face, 
though she was unable to fathom its 
cause. She was a woman with whom 
tact was regarded as a virtue, and she 
had for an instant the uncomfortable 
sense of having conversed perhaps a 
little too freely with a stranger. Har- 
vey had seemed, all at once, to lose 
interest in the old, ancestral pile of 
brick, and was looking now somewhat 
wistfully, in the direction of the woods 
from which they had just emerged. 

“ I was thinking,” he said slowly, 
after a time, and in a complete change 
tone, “ how odd it is that I should 
have met you, after all those years, in 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 137 


the one spot of all others I would 
have selected, if I had had my wish.” 

Under his burning look Margaret 
drew herself up a little proudly. 

“It is rather a sudden shifting of 
scenes, is it not ? ” she answered, 
lightly. “ First the Metropolitan Opera 
House of New York, and then a pri- 
meval forest of Kentucky. Fate evi- 
dently intended the effect to be 
heightened by contrast — with a clever, 
theatric kind of management. But at 
least it was a kindly stroke that sent 
you to me to-day.” 

“Will you let me believe that you 
do really mean that?” he asked, in a 
low voice. 

She was leaning languidly against one 
of the gate-posts, looking down upon 
him where he stood several feet below 
her on the sloping ground, and she was 
smiling, always smiling, though his 
manner was so grave and earnest, 


138 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ I will tell you what I mean, when 
we meet again,” she answered, pres- 
ently. And with that, seeing that he 
was keeping her standing, he was 
forced to take his leave, which he did 
a moment later, bowing low before 
her. 

When once he had passed out of 
sight, he suddenly changed his course 
and plunged straight into the heart of 
the woods. With the instinct of all 
finer natures, whose highest emotions 
have been stirred, he felt an imper- 
ative need for solitude. 

Almost mechanically, his feet led 
him to the spot where they had met so 
short a time before, since when an 
eternity of feeling and of change had 
elapsed. Throwing himself upon the 
grass — the grass her feet had pressed 
— he lay for hours, his arms thrown 
back of his head, his eyes half closed, 
listening to the wind in the branches 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 139 


of the old tree which had sheltered 
her loveliness and whose mysterious 
whisperings were all of her. 

By and by, when the fierce tumult in 
his veins began to subside a little, he 
grew to look upon the spot as a sort of 
shrine, and had all kinds of hallowed 
thoughts about it. With that last look 
of hers upon him which had thrilled 
him to the very heart’s center, he would 
have regarded it as a profanation to 
hold immediate converse with any other 
human being, however dear to him. 
And so he remained there, heedless of 
the drifting hours, dreaming, reverent, 
and impassioned — yet not wholly clear 
in all the strange fancies that flitted 
through his brain, as one whose sight 
has become dimmed from gazing too 
long at the sun — until the long, bright 
summer day had begun to wane, and 
twilight, with stealthy footstep and 
shadowy garments, had glided, a dark 


140 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

phantom, through the lonely wold. 
And all that time, whatever difficulties 
might hereafter obtrude themselves 
upon him, she was his — his beloved, 
the Ideal, the Perfect Realization ; and 
he, her lover, untrammelled and abso- 
lutely blessed, was a poet, because of 
the height to which he had risen 
through “the might of one fair face.” 


VIII. 

The light wind, stealing in through 
the open windows, stirred the embroid- 
ered muslin curtains in the cool break- 
fast room at Grassland and played with 
the bows of lavender ribbon on Mrs. 
Pryor’s pretty morning gown. 

The repast, characterized by the usual 
elaborateness of a Kentucky breakfast, 
had been ended for some moments, and 
the children had gone to their play. 
Their sweet, young voices floated in, 
from time to time, and mingled with 
the songs of birds and the breath of 
flowers. Margaret had just left the 
room. With a smile and a nod of the 
head in the direction of that young 
woman’s retreating figure, Mrs. Pryor 
suddenly turned to her husband : 

( 141 ) 


142 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ I have been thinking that we should 
surely do something to enliven her, and 
lo, without any help of mine, the diver- 
sion has already come ! ” 

The delicately-arched brows were 
perceptibly elevated, and she wore the 
smiling look of one who imparts an 
amusing communication. 

Whom do you think,” bending for- 
ward on her elbows and letting her 
voice fall, “she met yesterday in the 
Oak Woods in most romantic fashion?” 

Not possessing a very lively and fer- 
tile imagination, and being but little 
interested, the General merely vouch- 
safed a brief glance from over his 
newspaper and declined to conjecture. 

“ The son of your old post-and-railer 
friend, as you call him, young Greer — 
Harvey Greer; isn’t that his name? 
Margaret mentioned the occurrence to 
me in her usual careless way. She said 
that Edward had given her such a fright 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 143 


climbing up into one of the trees and 
positively refusing to come down, and 
that this young man, who happened to 
be walking in the woods at the time, 
saw her predicament and came to the 
rescue. She spoke quite indifferently, 
but I could plainly see that she was 
interested, more interested than I have 
seen her in any one for years. It was 
either that, or she is pining for another 
conquest. A woman like Margaret 
grows accustomed to being worshipped 
and doesn’t exactly know how to get on 
without it.” 

“ Humph ! ” 

The General put down his newspaper 
and pushed back his eyeglasses. He 
was a large, heavily-built man of about 
sixty years of age, but still vigorous 
and remarkably fine-looking. His iron- 
gray moustache and his hair a shade 
whiter were abundant ; his eyes had 
the clear, spirited look of healthfulness 


144 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

and intellectual strength. In manner 
he was bluff, but kindly, and always 
courteous ; and when he did not quote 
Latin — being a man of scholarly habits 
— and did not weary one with remi- 
niscences of the civil war, he was as 
agreeable and charming an old gentle- 
man as one is likely to encounter. 
Thoroughly aristocratic in all of his 
tastes and ideas, he had yet the most 
ardent admiration for the new type of 
Southerner — a type whose presence is 
rapidly becoming so widely felt in the 
land. Being entirely self-made and 
living upon no record of the deeds of 
their ancestors, he regarded such men 
as the very bone and sinew of the 
South, and rested all his hopes for the 
future upon the aspiration of this class. 
He had, moreover, an especial interest 
in young Harvey Greer whom he con- 
sidered a living example of his theory. 

He accordingly pushed back his 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 145 


glasses and laid aside his paper with 
less reluctance than he ordinarily dis- 
played at an interruption, seeing that 
the young man was the subject of the 
conversation. 

“ A fine young fellow! A remarkably 
fine young fellow!” he exclaimed, lean- 
ing back in his chair. “ I should like him 
to be invited here, to my house, my table, 
and I hope you will see to it at once — as 
soon as it is convenient to you, my 
dear,” he added in a tone in which 
there was blended an amusing com- 
mingling of conciliation and command. 

Mrs. Pryor reached forth a hand and 
gathered one of the long-stemmed roses 
from the cut-glass bowl on the table. 
It was ' some time before she replied. 
Apparently she was revolving in her 
mind a subject of considerable impor- 
tance. 

“ Margaret has not the remotest idea 
of his parentage,” she suggested, at 


146 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

length, toying abstractedly with the 
delicate petals of the flower. 

'‘What if she hasn’t, what if she 
hasn’t?” the general broke in, gruffly. 
“But I’ve no doubt you’ll take it upon 
yourself to enlighten her, being a wo- 
man and your head filled with all the 
foolish notions of your sex in such mat- 
ters. Old Micajah Greer is as upright 
and as respected a man as there is in 
the whole of Fayette County, and he is a 
gentleman, too — ‘ Montani semper liberi 
— for the matter of that. As for his 
son,” and the general brought his large 
fist down upon the table with an em- 
phasis, “ I’ve got just this much to say 
about that : Any — young — woman 
that has been having about her the 
brainless fops and numbskulls that help 
to make up that assembly of idiots 
known as society, and can then find 
fault with a manly , educated young fel- 
low like Harvey Greer — is unworthy 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 147 


of his notice! Yes, unworthy of his 
notice, I say!” he vociferated, waxing 
more and more wroth and growing 
very red in the face through the mere 
force of his own utterance, as he went 
on in his declamatory style. 

There can be no limiting of the ora- 
torical flights to which he might have 
ascended, having been warmed into an 
enthusiastic reminder of his favorite 
theme and roused into a state of indig- 
nation at the bare insinuation of a dis- 
paragement to young Greer, had not 
his wife suddenly cut short his elo- 
quence by remarking quite mildly : 

“But Margaret has not found the 
smallest fault with him whatever.” 

Mrs. Pryor could with difficulty re- 
strain a smile at her husband’s vehe- 
mence. In truth he was simply playing 
into her hands, for, in the course of the 
conversation, she had arrived at a conclu- 
sion which she meant strictly to adhere 


148 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

to, and that was to offer no explanation 
regarding the young man further than 
she was absolutely compelled to and 
merely allow matters to take their own 
course. She had also a certain feeling 
of curiosity as to the result of these 
revelations, if they should be postponed. 
Sooner or later, she argued, it was in- 
evitable that Margaret should know all 
there was to be known about him, as it 
was evident that the General, now that 
the subject had once been brought up, 
meant to offer him every courtesy. 

She had no doubt that any overtures 
they might make would be accepted, 
and the end of it all, in spite of any inter- 
ference on her part, would be that he 
would assuredly fall in love with Mar- 
garet. She had seen so many instances 
of the power of this young woman’s 
beauty and charm, and she believed the 
circumstances were such that she could 
do little to prevent the usual catas- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 149 


trophe. She, therefore, concluded that 
nothing could be gained by disclosing 
the origin of Harvey Greer, except per- 
haps a loss of interest on the part of 
Margaret herself, whose ideas upon the 
subject of heredity and caste she well 
knew were considerably strained. As 
to the young man himself she could not 
stifle a certain feeling of regret and 
pity. But there seemed nothing to do 
but to assent to her husband’s wishes 
and invite him to the house on the fol- 
lowing Friday evening, when she was 
arranging a dinner for twelve. 

“ I expect some people the last of the 
week. Is it your wish that we should in- 
clude him also? ” she asked, with the air 
of one who slips lightly from under the 
weight of an unpleasant responsibility. 

“ Yes ; just as good a time as any. In- 
vite him then; invite him then.” The 
General’s answer was final and decisive. 

“ On your own head be it then, if he 


150 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

falls in love with Margaret,” Mrs. Pryor 
answered, laughing, as she rose from 
the table. But she could not altogether 
subdue a conscientious pang of remorse 
for those ruthless Juggernautal wheels 
whose revolvings even now were plainly 
visible to her mind’s eye. 

“ ‘ Et in Arcadia ego ” the General 
quoted with a smile, again restored to 
his customary good humor by his wife’s 
acquiescence. 


IX. 


When, a few days later, Mrs. Pryor’s 
note of invitation was received — one of 
those elegant and airily gracious mis- 
sives in which she especially excelled — 
Harvey Greer was in his room bending 
over a table piled high with books which 
he had that morning unpacked. 

As a natural reaction, the state of 
exalted delight inspired by that be- 
wildering meeting in the forest had 
been followed by a somber depression 
of spirits, and, to a considerable de- 
gree, the glamor of the enchantment 
had been forced to give place to the 
common light of reality. 

When should he see her again? It 
was the one question he continually 
asked himself, which he seemed to 
breathe with every breath he drew, 

( 151 ) 


152 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

but to which, on account of the pecu- 
liar conditions by which he was en- 
compassed, he was able to find no 
response. 

But how those words of hers — “ I 
shall tell you when we meet again” — 
how they rang in his ears and tor- 
tured him with their suggestion of 
possibilities he felt himself powerless 
to effect ! Of a nature not easily 
daunted, and from being accustomed 
to take things before him with a cer- 
tain bold, free grace that was essen- 
tially his, he had heretofore gone to 
meet whatever obstacles he found in 
his path with a confidence that had 
led to easy victory. Believing, as so 
many have believed in the pride of 
their brave young manhood, that man 
is the molder of his own destiny, he 
had always felt that with courage, 
energy, and patience all things might 
yet be his — all things of earth, and 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 153 


sky, and light, and truth. And in 
those moments of a deeper seriousness 
and more sacred communing with his 
own thoughts, when there had floated 
before him that shadowy vision of the 
Ideal, before whose shrine all men, 
whether secretly or otherwise, worship, 
it had ever been the cardinal tenet of 
his faith that if love were strong 
enough, pure enough, perfect enough 
in itself, it must surely attain its ob- 
ject by the very force of its own divine 
strength. 

But to-day, as he bent gloomily over 
the book before him — a profoundly 
exhaustive treatise on a “ Theory of 
the Will” — vainly attempting to lose 
himself in the mass of dogma and 
conflicting opinions therein set forth, 
there had seemed all at once to come 
to him, in the shock of a painful sur- 
prise, a complete recognition of the 
barriers which separated him from the 


154 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

woman who, above all others, had 
fired his imagination and woven about 
him a spell so mystic and irresistible 
that her beauty still encompassed him 
as if present to his sight. The “ The- 
ory of the Will ” offered but little 
balm to his troubled spirit, and, though 
he had been reading steadily for the 
past two hours or more, the painful 
undercurrent of an ever-present dejec- 
tion made it difficult for him to fix 
his attention. However, he was thus 
afforded an excellent opportunity for a 
practical illustration of his powers of 
concentration, and whether or not 
he was enjoying the experiment, he 
looked up, with a movement of impa- 
tience, as the sound of footsteps, hur- 
rying up the stairs in the direction of 
his room, drew steadily nearer. 

There was a loud, impetuous knock 
from outside, and almost before he 
could make any response the door was 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 155 


flung wide and his mother stood in 
the entrance. In his first glance at her 
excited countenance he realized that 
she was the bearer of some important 
communication. He placed a chair for 
her with his usual deliberateness, and, 
forcing into his manner an expression 
of gratification at her presence, which 
he was at that moment unable to feel 
as genuinely as he could have wished, 
he stood waiting, with most respectful 
attention, for her to begin. 

She had been making strawberry 
preserves, and had left her boiling 
kettle in great haste to deliver in per- 
son a large, square, cream-colored en- 
velope which she had a moment before 
taken from the messenger as he passed 
the kitchen window, and which, with a 
look of speechless triumph, she now 
brought forth from among the folds of 
her crumpled cotton apron. Her 
sleeves were rolled high above the 


156 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

elbow, showing her bare, freckled arms, 
stained here and there with the crim- 
son fruit. She held the outstretched 
note charily between the tips of her 
fingers, as if fearful of leaving a mark 
upon it. 

“Just look at that, Harvey ! ” she ex- 
claimed, still breathless from her quick 
mounting of the long stair, lean- 
ing back and smiling complacently. 
“ What’d I tell Micaiah no more’n two 
nights ago when he was a-goin’ over 
again for the twentieth time all them 
fine things the Gen’ral said about 
you. I sez, Micajah, sez I, they’ll be 
after him in less’n a week ; see if they 
ain’t.” Then she added, with a change 
of tone, her voice suddenly falling from 
its shrill, boastful key to its custom- 
ary curtness, “ Ole Dilsey’s boy, Dave, 
from over at Grassland, just brought 
it. He come on horseback, an’ says 
they tole him to wait for an answer.” 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 157 


The young- man’s face flushed deeply. 
Without a word he came forward, took 
the note and, walking over to where 
his desk stood in one corner of the 
room, sat down before it. But he did 
not break the seal at once. A tumult 
of feeling was surging in him. For 
the moment he completely forgot that 
he was not alone, in the swift com- 
mingling of confused emotions. Then, 
becoming suddenly conscious that his 
mother’s eyes were bent curiously upon 
him and that she was still waiting, he 
opened the envelope and read the 
message. 

If Mrs. Greer had anticipated the 
manifestation of any delight at its 
contents she was destined to meet 
with a cruel disappointment. A sur- 
prised, baffled look came into her 
eyes, alertly eager, and still keenly 
fixed upon every movement of her 
son, who was now gathering together 


158 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

his materials for writing with an air 
of unconcern. 

Presently he turned toward her. 

“ Don’t let me keep you waiting,” 
he said, “ I will attend to this.” 

Seeing that she still remained 
seated, he drew toward him one of 
the scattered sheets of paper and 
quickly framed a reply. But there 
was a sternness in his manner that 
forbade all questioning when he finally 
came forward. 

His mother had now risen and was 
standing near the table in the center 
of the room waiting for the note 
to be finished. All the pride, all 
the hope had utterly gone out of 
her face. She looked older by ten 
good years in the loss of that 
buoyant expectation which has lent a 
momentary glow to her careworn fea- 
tures. Yet so much of wistfulness 
and regret still remained that the 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 159 


young man was moved to a brief expla- 
nation. 

“ The note is from Mrs. Pryor,” he 
quietly volunteered. “ She asks me to 
dine at Grassland on Friday evening 
at eight o’clock.” 

“ An’ you didn’t go an’ say you 
wouldn’t do it, did you?” she screamed. 
“ Mercy on us, Harvey, what could you 
be a-thinkin’ of? Not that I don’t 
know we’re just as good as they are, 
every whit an’ grain. But seems 
’twould be more neighborly-like to 
help to eat a slice of their Southdown 
mutton, seein’ as they’re so set on 
havin’ you. An’ that pretty young 
lady over there all by herself with 
never a bit of love-makin’ from morn 
till night!” 

But Harvey interposed with a ges- 
ture of annoyance. 

“ I wrote that I should be happy 
to accept,” he announced, bending 


160 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

down to replace a book he had brushed 
from the table. 

When the last sound of his mother’s 
footsteps — the clattering of loose, ill- 
fitting slippers upon the uncarpeted 
stairs, leading down to the rear of the 
building — had died away, Harvey 
turned and walked quickly from the 
room. An irresistible impulse drove 
him to escape the restraints of all con- 
finement — to be out under the great, 
blue, silent heavens alone with his 
thoughts. 

Friday! Did ever hours drag as 
slowly as would these ! His brain 
reeled under the delirium of antici- 
pation. This delightful, unlooked-for 
opportunity must have come through 
Her, through some desire on her part 
that they should meet again, and from 
the depths of his nature he was roused 
into a spirit of thankfulness to Her for 
it, a thankfulness in which there was 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 161 


always that touch of poetic reverence 
which a man feels for the first woman 
who has taken strong hold upon his 
life. 

He had thought to take the orchard 
path, and from thence to plunge deep 
into the woods; but as he turned the 
corner of the house he suddenly came 
upon Dorinda — Dorinda seated under 
a wide-spreading oak, enveloped in a 
long white apron and stemming straw- 
berries with a will. Meaning to pass 
her by with merely a nod, a careless, 
kindly word, perhaps, all at once some- 
thing altered his intention. He was in 
such an amiable, indulgent mood to- 
ward all the world, especially toward 
Dorinda, whose loveliness seemed to 
touch him at this moment with even 
more than ordinary charm. He felt his 
heart warm to her, as he stood watching 
the movements of the spirited little 
figure, appearing very quaint and child- 
11 


162 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ish to-day in the long, white apron, 
reaching from just below the throat 
quite down to the slim ankles which 
peeped from beneath her pink calico 
gown. Moreover, it was a delight to 
look at her with that glow in her dusky 
cheek, and to watch the way the wind 
blew the soft tendrils of chestnut hair 
above the low brow and about her tiny 
ears. 

She vouchsafed some slight acknowl- 
edgment of his presence, but did not 
pause from hfer work. Harvey threw 
himself on the grass at her feet. 

“ Are you in good humor to-day, Do- 
rinda ? ” he inquired, teasingly, looking 
pensively up at her, and smiling from 
beneath his half-closed lids. 

Dorinda’s answer was brief and to 
the point. 

“ No,” she replied flatly, “I am not,” 
her antagonism instantly aroused by 
the levity of his manner. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 163 


He drew a little nearer to her, 
reaching out for one of the rounds of 
her chair, and thus dragging himself, 
along the grass, at her side. For a 
moment, with the utmost gravity, his 
eyes rested full and searchingly upon 
hers. 

The girl flushed deeply, in one of 
those slow, burning blushes which once 
or twice before he had seen flash over 
her, dyeing her very throat, even where 
it could be seen beneath the surplice 
cut of her gown. In another instant 
she had turned angrily away. 

“ What a beautiful, savage little crea- 
ture you are !” he cried involuntarily. 
Then noting the swift changes in her 
countenance, “you poor child! Poor 
little girl ! ” he said very gently, moved 
to a swift compassion. 

“ Do you know,” he went on, stretch- 
ing himself more comfortably on the 
grass at her feet, “the thought has 


164 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

sometimes come to me of late that I 
do really hurt you with my silly jesting 
and nonsense ? Surely, you don’t think 
me the bear I seem ? The truth is, 
Dorinda, I have been so little with 
women in my life, and know almost 
nothing of their ways and how to 
please them, I dare say I shall go on 
making no end of blunders with you 
all the time ; but you know, you do 
know , what kindness there is in my 
heart for you, in spite of all ? ” 

For once, indeed, he was speaking 
quite seriously. Unconsciously, he had 
fallen into a subdued, wounded tone, 
and he continued in the same strain : 

“ I can never quite rid myself of the 
feeling that you are finding me a nui- 
sance and a bore, and all that kind of 
thing, and that I have no right to worry 
you.” 

For several moments after he had 
ceased speaking, Dorinda went steadily 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 105 


on with her task, apparently feeling 
herself in no way called upon to offer 
a contradiction to the wholesome humil- 
ity of his mood. Presently, however, 
she paused, and crossing one little slim 
hand above the other, rested them both 
upon the rim of the large earthern 
basin in her lap, critically examining 
them in a long, silent scrutiny. The 
sun had burned them to a warm brown, 
and they were shriveled about the 
finger tips and stained from contact 
with the fruit. Unsightly as they ap- 
peared to her, and never before had 
they seemed so unbeautiful she 
thought, she kept her eyes fixed upon 
them as if deriving some secret mean- 
ing or salutary discipline from their 
deliberate contemplation. 

“ You must not think that you worry 
me, Harvey,” she said, at length, lift- 
ing her eyes and meeting his glance 
quite calmly. Then, with a superb 


166 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

gesture that seemed fo thrill her small 
figure from head to foot, she added, 
loftily : 

“ It would not be possible for anyone 
to worry me in the least.” 

Harvey broke into a laugh. 

“ Then, my dear Lady Disdain, you 
are, indeed, fortunate. Lots of people 
have worried me in my life — no end of 
them, in fact.” 

“ Have they ? ” she asked, dubiously, 
but with a growing interest, seeing 
that the conversation was likely to be- 
come a little less embarrassing. 

“Oh, yes, indeed,” he replied, sol- 
emnly ; “ I could never begin to tell 
you all that I have suffered in my day.” 

“ But it must be so delightful to 
know people, and to go places and to 
see the world.” she mused. She had 
moved sidewise in her chair, and, with 
one elbow on the back, was resting her 
chin in her hand. In her eyes there 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 167 


was that far-away, wistful look that 
betrayed the restlessness of her exist- 
ence and which always awoke in the 
young man a sympathetic regret for 
all that she was denied. 

“Yes, it is delightful — the world; 
and how I should love to show it all to 
you. Do you know, Dorinda, I think 
you have the true artist’s nature — in 
the way of appreciation, I mean. I 
don’t believe there is anything you 
could not enjoy. See here — some day 
we shall go traveling together — ” 

He broke off abruptly — such a 
deathly pallor had overspread her face. 
At the same moment a bee brushed 
itself across her hand, and she uttered 
a low cry of pain. 

He was at her side in an instant, 
holding the little quivering palm in 
his. 

“Oh, did it sting you?” he cried; I 
am so sorry. But I can not find the 


168 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

place,” looking in vain for the slight- 
est mark or swelling. She quickly 
snatched her hand away. 

“No — no — it is nothing. It doesn’t 
hurt me now. Really it does not,” 
noting the still anxious look in his 
eyes. 

“ Are you quite sure that it does 
not ? ” he asked, still standing. 

She had gathered tip her bowl and 
was religiously stemming the fruit. 

“ They are such a nuisance, those 
horrid bees ! It seems to me they fol- 
low me wherever I go,” she com- 
plained, petulantly. 

“I am sure I don’t wonder,” he an- 
swered, .stretching himself again full 
length upon the ground, and comfort- 
ably placing his arms behind his head 
for a pillow ; “I don’t recall that any 
one ever compared me to that thrifty 
insect before, but I am myself at this 
moment conscious of at least one dis- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 169 


tinctive point of resemblance. How- 
ever, I shall endeavor not to express 
my admiration quite so boldly as that 
last fellow.” 

He was lazily watching the white 
clouds floating peacefully overhead, 
and so failed to see the sudden tremor 
that swept over her tiny frame. 

“ But what was it we were speaking 
of a moment ago ? Oh, yes, I remem- 
ber now — about experience, and travel, 
and people, and things in general. By 
the way, I have been thinking a good 
deal lately about the loneliness of your 
life here, and trying to find a remedy. 
Is it really true that your days go on 
always like this without any compan- 
ionship at all ? Surely there must be 
some young girl in the neighborhood 
of your own age in whom you can take 
an interest? ” 

“ I detest girls,” Dorinda retorted, 
with a scornful curl of the lip. 


170 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

Harvey indulged in a low whistle 
of dismay. 

“ Do you ? ” he inquired, much amused. 

“ Oh — I see,” as if a sudden light had 
broken in upon him. “ I will put the 
question differently: Isn’t there some 
young man , then, in the neighborhood 
in whom you can take an interest? 
How about that young minister over 
at Walnut Hill that some one was 
speaking of last week?” 

A surprised light gleamed from under 
the dark lashes for an instant — a light 
of hatred, almost, and defiance. She 
seemed struggling with herself in an 
effort for self-command. The beauti- 
ful, impassioned little face twitched 
nervously. Her form had grown rigid 
in its proud resentment. Then, all at 
once, her smothered anger resisting all 
control, she broke forth into the hot, 
reckless, hastily spoken words that 
seemed to rise unbidden to her lips: 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 171 


“ Why should you disturb yourself 
about my life ? ” she cried, savagely, 
from between her clenched teeth. 
“What is my life to you? And do I 
ever come to you with any complaint? 
What is it to you that I am lonely 
and uncared for and desolate ? Is not 
the whole wide world still left for 
you ? Can you not go and come when 
you will? What is my loneliness to 
you?" 

Bitter, blinding tears had gathered 
in her eyes ; her bosom, swept by a 
passion of revolt, rose and fell stormily 
beneath the folds of her gown. She 
had been carried completely out of 
herself, goaded on by his teasing words 
into a piteous dvowal. But there was 
dignity in her stern isolation, a sensi- 
tiveness to a light approach which 
threw around her an impregnable 
reserve. 

But when she had ceased speaking 


172 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

a prolonged silence followed upon her 
outbreak. 

If Harvey felt any surprise at the 
vehemence which he had unwittingly 
called down upon his own head, his 
manner in no way betrayed him. He 
• did not once look toward her, however, 
but the nonchalant ease of his attitude 
remained unchanged. Presently he 
reached forth a hand and gathered a 
sprig of myrtle from the mass that 
grew around the old tree, gravely 
smoothing the polished leaves between 
his fingers, and still avoiding her eyes. 

When, after a considerable time, he 
lifted his head, Dorinda was making 
ready to depart. But he was unpre- 
pared for the complete change in her 
— for the pathetic droop to the little 
figure, which a moment before had 
been so proudly defiant, the weariness, 
the listlessness that pervaded her ex- 
pression and entire bearing. As she 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 173 


met his glance a look of beseeching 
timidity, of sorrowful humiliation, 
stole into her eyes, which faltered 
and drooped beneath his quiet gaze 
like those of a child acknowledging a 
fault. He leaned forward and touched 
her on the arm. 

“ Dear/’ he said, very gently. “Oh, 
you poor, proud little thing!” 

In that moment he felt there was 
no sacrifice he would not be willing 
to make to shield her from the suffer- 
ing which, from the very nature of her 
temperament, she was inevitably des- 
tined to call down upon herself. 

“Why can’t we be friends, Dorinda?” 
he insisted, drawing a little nearer to 
her and endeavoring to throw into his 
voice some of the earnestness he felt 
more deeply than he had any words 
to express, being accustomed, as he 
was when with her, to easily fall into 
the old playful tone she had always 


174 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

seemed irresistibly to provoke. “ Why 
need we keep up this state of things? 
Do you think I am really such a block- 
head as not to understand everything 
that you may have to endure? The 
dreariness of your life here — why, 
you just can’t think how often the 
thought of it has come to me and 
troubled me. You aren’t like any 
other girl — you feel too much, and 
you dream, which always means to 
suffer. It’s all on account of possess- 
ing too lively an imagination, I sup- 
pose. But things aren’t half as bad as 
they look — they never are ; and, if you 
will pardon my vanity in the assump- 
tion, I do think I might brighten you 
up a bit, if you would only give me 
the chance.” 

Dorinda looked at that moment as if 
in truth she were not without the need 
of a certain process of brightening up, 
as her brow had not yet cleared in spite 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 175 

of the allurement he chose to offer. 
But he went on confidently, manifest- 
ing such a kind and brotherly enthu- 
siasm regarding her amusement, that 
she w^as forced to give him her attention. 

“What do you say now,” he sug- 
gested, “of a plan like this — I thought 
of it a moment ago while we were 
speaking : There’s going to be a pretty 
good company, (not first-class, of course, 
at this time of the year, but still fairly 
good) at the opera house in Lexington 
to-morrow evening and the next. 
What do you say ? We might drive in 
in time for the opera, and then come 
home by moonlight; these nights are 
perfect. What do you think of the 
idea, Dorinda? Now do be a good 
child and say you will go with me.” 

He had been watching her face as he 
spoke, the pretty, mobile, swiftly flush- 
ing cheek, and there was little cause 
for the uncertainty, which, as a matter 


176 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

of precaution, lie threw into his voice as 
he urged his request. 

The girl drew a long, deep breath 
before she answered. If only the 
picture he held out to her were not so 
enchanting ! The opera ! In all her 
life she had never been to an opera. 
To hear it with him, and then the drive 
home by moonlight under the thick 
trees ! If only the picture were not so 
perfect, so beautiful, perhaps even yet 
she might have the strength to tell him 
no. 

But Harvey’s face was still upturned 
to hers with that look of flattering 
entreaty she had always found so 
difficult to resist. He did really seem 
to want her. Why should she not go ? 

“ Oh, Harvey ! ” she cried, at length, 
and could say no more. But there was 
no mistaking the delight which glowed 
from her face. To the young man who 
had heard everything from Wagner to 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 177 


the lightest music of the day, there was 
something touching as well as charm- 
ing in her excitement at the prospect of 
this very mild form of enjoyment 
which was the best he could offer. He 
had privately anticipated that the opera, 
as far as he was personally concerned, 
would be something barely endurable ; 
but he now found himself looking for- 
ward with considerable zest to the 
pleasure of witnessing her happiness. 

He had risen and was standing lean- 
ing against the tree at her side, looking 
meditatively down upon her. 

“You really will go with me?” he 
said, at length. “ It is so good of you. 
Then to-morrow,” with an airy wave of 
the hand — “and by your gracious 
pleasure.” 

But a shadow had suddenly crept 
into Dorinda’s eyes — a half-startled 
look as of fear that her joy might be 

snatched away from her. 

12 


178 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“Would it suit you quite as well, 
Harvey,” she asked, timidly, “ if — if we 
did not go until the evening after, until 
Friday — would it suit you quite as 
well ? ” 

Harvey’s face expressed a slight 
annoyance. 

“ But why not to-morrow ? ” he 
inquired, coldly. “ Because I am afraid 
I can not go to-morrow,” she replied, 
very sadly, still with that unusual 
shrinking in her manner, a dread of 
offending him. “ I had forgotten when 
you spoke ; I shall be needed here.” 

“ How perfectly absurd, Dorinda,” he 
cut in hotly, now genuinely provoked. 
“ But, of course, if you don’t care to 
go with me — ” 

“ Oh, I care — I do care — but,” she 
suddenly paused, unable to go on. 
Tears had gathered in her eyes, tears 
of disappointment and regret ; she 
looked quickly away. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 179 


“ But what then ? Why don't you 
say you will go at once, Dorinda ? 
Can’t you see that I do really mean 
it, that I want you, and that you annoy 
me by this unnecessary hesitation in 
such a little matter? Tell me now, 
finally, do you want to go, or do you 
not ?” 

“ I want to go,” she said, slowly, look- 
ing down at the ground. “ That is — ” 

“ Then we will consider it an engage- 
ment,” he announced, firmly, “ for to- 
morrow evening.” 

“ I can not go before Friday,” she 
repeated, sorrowfully shaking her head. 
“ The fruit is all over-ripe. I shall be 
needed here. We shall be preserving 
all day to-morrow, and perhaps quite 
late into the night. But I thought, 
perhaps,” she hesitated and flushed a 
little as she hurried on, “ I thought, if 
you understood, that — if Friday would 
suit you just as well — ” 


180 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ In other words, you mean that you 
do not care to go with me. Oh, very 
well, I won’t bother you,” he responded, 
in his careless, off-hand fashion. “ Per- 
haps it really would not have been so 
entertaining after all. I only thought to 
give you a pleasure. As you evidently 
prefer the more delightful occupation 
of making strawberry preserves to such 
frivolities, I can only accept my fate. 
Well — I think I’ve bored you long 
enough for one morning.” 

She caught in her breath with a 
pained start, seeing that he was about 
to leave her. 

“ Why won’t you understand ?” she 
cried, helplessly. “ I do thank you for 
thinking of me, and I want to go with 
you — oh, Harvey! if you would only 
say that Friday would suit you just as 
well.” 

“ But it will not,” he answered, shortly. 
“You know perfectly well that you 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 181 


could go with me Thursday, if you 
wished, and all this is only an evasion, 
an excuse. Nevertheless, I would take 
you at your word and say Friday, since 
you name it, if I had not an engage- 
ment for that evening, which will make 
it impossible.” 

He spoke with a certain formality, 
an embarrassment of manner which he 
was unable to conceal. 

An engagement ! She knew not from 
what cause came the sudden, ice-cold 
grasp at her heart that left her power- 
less to speak. But a dark foreboding 
of evil, as yet only dimly defined, set 
all her pulses throbbing as if some 
hideous phantom had swiftly glided 
before her sight. 

She did not try to look up ; she could 
not. She could only wait until he 
spoke. 

“ I am asked to dine at Grassland 
on Friday evening; otherwise, Friday 


182 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

would suit me as well as any other 
time.” 

The words, simple, common-place as 
they were, yet spoken with an undis- 
guised constraint, shot through her 
with the force of no other utterance 
that had ever yet fallen on her ears. 

And all at once the glory faded out 
of the summer skies; the wind in the 
low branches was a moan, and, oh, 
that leaden, sickening feeling at her 
heart! A blue-bird called from the 
maple as of old. But to-day there was 
something taunting in the sound. She 
gave a startled glance over her shoul- 
der ; there was something to hurt her 
in every object on which her glances 
fell. 

Harvey, noting the pain in her eyes, 
and misinterpreting the cause, expe- 
rienced a reaction of feeling toward 
her and magnanimously forgave her 
her refusal to comply with his wishes. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 183 


After all, it would seem that she had 
not acted from a mere caprice, as she 
so frequently did. 

“ Really, I’m awfully sorry about it, 
Dorinda,” he began, his amiability 
finally restored, “but some fine day, 
we’ll have another lark together. We 
shall have no end of good times now 
that I am beginning to feel that your 
intentions are not as unflattering as you 
sometimes make them appear, and that 
you do not really mean to avoid me. 
But about Friday,” halting, and speak- 
ing with the reluctance which from the 
first he had manifested on the mention 
of the day — “of course you understand 
now why I insisted that you should 
go with me on Thursday evening 
instead ? ” 

And Dorinda, turning her white, 
drawn little face away, answered that 
she understood. 


X. 


Old Grassland was ablaze with hos- 
pitable cheer. 

From afar, in glimpses through the 
thick trees, and from time to time 
revealed by the tortuous pathway 
through the woods, Harvey could 
see the many lights of the building 
burning into the night. 

As if the myriad voices of the dark- 
ness had throbbed themselves into one 
passionate note of pleading, now and 
again a melancholy monotone rose and 
fell with rhythmical precision on the 
quivering breeze. As he approached 
the house, the sob-like repetition took 
on a more varied form of entreaty, and 
the sound of harps on some distant 
veranda, tuneful and delicious, floated 
plaintively out to the quiet stars. 

( 184 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 185 


Near the doorway the air was heavy 
with the breath of flowers. The broad 
portal, its quaint semicircular frame 
aglow, was flung generously wide. All 
the windows being open, the stately ap- 
pointments of the old house were 
visible from the outside. 

The long drawing-room with its yel- 
low satin hangings, its polished floors, 
and high carved mantels, was lighted 
with wax candles which shone from 
innumerable sconces and candelabra, 
and reflected brilliantly in the many 
mirrors. There was that old-time pic- 
turesqueness over everything which is 
only attained by the mellowing touch 
of years. In the spirit of veneration 
for his ancestors inherent with the 
Kentuckian, the walls of the room, to 
the exclusion of all other adornment of 
art, presented a redoubtable array of 
family portraits, which, with indiscrim- 
inate severity, stared down upon the 


1S6 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

just and the unjust from their heavy 
gilt confines. These cherished posses- 
sions were in many cases the work of 
artists whose names have become not 
only inseparable from the history of the 
State, but of national renown. Here 
and there were rare bits of china, and 
on all sides tall vases and bowls filled 
with flowers. 

Upon the divans and high-back 
chairs, the guests, (all of whom had ap- 
parently assembled,) were seated — 
young women and men in evening 
toilet, indulging in the familiar dis- 
course of people well-acquainted with 
each other. The hum of their voices 
and their light laughter were borne to 
Harvey Greer as he came quickly up 
the steps. But their good-humored 
levity jarred painfully upon him. 

At the thought of this next meeting, 
he had felt himself stirred with all the 
devout emotions of one entering some 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 187 


consecrated fane. He was conscious of 
the painful sensation of listening to 
unseemly clamor in a sacred place, as 
his glance, drawn by an irresistible 
attraction, fell upon a gay group at the 
further end of the room. 

He could not tell why in that sharp 
flash of recognition he developed, 
instantly, a spirit of antagonism against 
those thoroughly well-mannered young 
gentlemen surrounding the beautiful 
golden-haired woman, who was half-re- 
clining among silken pillows, waving a 
fan of white ostrich tips to and fro, and 
letting her eyes, lit with a mysterious 
fire, slowly wander from one to another 
in attentive silence. 

Perhaps he resented their ease in 
her presence ; perhaps it struck him 
that their homage was a trifle too pro- 
nounced ; perhaps he felt irritated that 
she should allow it to be so ; perhaps — 
but who can analyze the morbid com- 


188 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

plexity of feeling which possesses a 
man at such a moment? His nature 
may be of the broadest, but no man 
is a philosopher either with the tooth- 
ache or when in love. 

In another moment, outwardly calm, 
deliberate, entirely free from the self- 
distrust which renders one awkward 
or embarrassed, he had entered the 
room and was bowing low before his 
hostess, who came fluttering toward 
him, smiling and very gracious. 

She looked charming in her gown of 
old-rose silk, her plump shoulders ris- 
ing daintily above the low bodice. 
The consciousness of being becomingly 
dressed, which with a woman is sup- 
posed to impart a satisfaction beyond 
the consolations of religion, was de- 
lightfully hers. She laughed a good 
deal, sometimes a trifle irrelevantly, 
Harvey thought, as she stood chat- 
ting with him in amiable volubil- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 189 


ity, revealing her white, beautiful 
teeth. 

But under her affable speech and 
manner there was all the while a covert 
observation. She reflected that, after 
all, she had not blundered in inviting 
Harvey Greer to her house. The poetic 
face of the young man, his pallor some- 
what intensified under the candle-l-ight, 
seemed to hold even a greater attrac- 
tion now that she saw him in his fault- 
less evening attire and witnessed his 
perfect composure of bearing. There 
was no doubt that Margaret would 
find him quite diverting. Moreover, 
he seemed a perfect gentleman — why 
should not one invite him ? And then, 
too, he was tall — such little men 
were always flocking around Margaret. 
Really, her conscience was quite at 
rest, for, of course, nothing serious 
could ever come of it, and now the 
summer would be so much less dull. 


190 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

There had come a slight pause in 
the conversation. For the first time 
Harvey allowed his eyes to wander in 
the direction of the group at the end 
of the room. Margaret’s fan was still 
waving languidly to and fro. His 
heart gave a great leap as he looked 
at her. For an instant he could not 
speak. 

Mrs. Pryor, following the direction 
of his glance, chimed in suavely: 

“ I am going to ask you to take my 
niece in to dinner, Mr. Greer. I mean 
Miss Pryor, of course, you understand ; 
but it always seems so ridiculous that 
Margaret should have become my 
niece, such a very little difference as 
there is in our ages ; and then, too, 
before my marriage we had been 
always quite good friends. The idea 
is absurd.” 

“Very absurd,” Harvey agreed, with 
polite emphasis, his smile conveying 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 191 


the flattery which so easily won for 
him his way into the good favor of 
all women. 

“And yet we have had such very 
different lives. Margaret has never 
known what it is to have a care, while 
I — ” and she threw out her hands with 
an expressive gesture of resignation 
and a shrug of her dimpled shoulders. 

“ But it is somewhat difficult to think 
of you as a person oppressed,” the 
young man suggested, a twinkle of 
amusement playing around the corners 
of his mouth. 

“General Pryor says I like nothing 
so well as to represent myself in the 
light of a martyr. The truth is, if I 
am given to magnifying my responsi- 
bilities, he always belittles them ; and 
I suppose the explanation for every- 
thing may be found in the fact that 
the duties of a sylvan existence are 
as irksome to me as they are delight- 


192 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ful to him.” The laugh that followed 
wholly belied the bitterness that her 
words might have implied. She broke 
off abruptly ; the General had suddenly 
caught sight of his young friend, and, 
with hands outstretched in welcome, 
was bearing ponderously down upon 
them. 

“Remember that you are to take in 
Miss Pryor,” she said, as she turned 
away, with her confiding smile. 

“ I am pleased to see you ; pleased to 
see you, sir ! ” the General exclaimed, 
heartily, as he came up, giving Harvey 
a cordial grasp of the hand. “ In fact, 
this is a pleasure which I have been 
anticipating for a long time,” he added 
in his pompous but kindly fashion. 

Harvey bowed his thanks and appre- 
ciation. 

“ Social occasions of the character of 
the present one are always delightful, 
very delightful,” General Pryor con- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 193 


tinued with slow impressiveness, lean- 
ing his portly frame against the side of 
the doorway, and with hospitable in- 
tent endeavoring to place the young 
man entirely at his ease. “ It is not so 
much the enjoyment of the moment 
that is of value, though that, of course, 
is not without its importance ; but it is 
the agreeable and fraternal state of 
mind brought about by the recollection 
of such experiences that renders them 
the more worthy of our appreciation. 

‘ Haec olim meminisse juvabit ,’ you un- 
derstand. The truth of that saying 
often forces itself upon the attention. 
Let me give you an illustration : Sev- 
eral weeks ago, while off with a party 
of friends on a fishing excursion in the 
mountains — ” 

And thereupon there followed a 
pointless, egotistical anecdote of con- 
siderable length, interspersed with 
various emphatic gesticulations and 

13 


194 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

sundry violent spasmodic grasps upon 
the listener’s arm which well-nigh 
wheeled him off his feet. If, like the 
wedding guest, Harvey felt inclined to 
exclaim, “Unhand me, grey-beard 
loon ! ” he very wisely stifled the im- 
pulse, and forcing his features into an 
expression of interest, he resigned 
himself with the best of grace to any 
amount of personal torture that his 
eccentric admirer might see fit to in- 
flict. However, virtue met with its re- 
ward shortly afterward, and dinner was 
announced. The General, charmed on 
finding young Greer (who in reality 
had scarcely spoken as much as a sin- 
gle sentence) so entertaining, moved 
away with reluctance to offer his arm 
to one of the matrons. The other 
guests filed slowly in. The group at 
the end of the room had dispersed. 

Margaret Pryor was standing alone, 
leaning a little wearily against the 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 195 


yellow satin portiere at the wide arch- 
way which divided the two long 
rooms. 

Harvey’s heart beat tumultuously as 
he came toward her. Then, as his 
devouring glance slowly realized the 
subtle flattery of her apparel, a flush of 
triumphant joy mounted hotly to his 
temples ; for her gown, white, ethereal, 
clinging foam-like about her perfect 
neck and arms, was, in every detail of 
its simplicity, precisely such as she had 
worn when he beheld her for the first 
time in all her radiant loveliness that 
evening in New York so many years 
before. Even the arrangement of her 
hair was the same ; rippling away from 
her low forehead and forming a strange 
contrast with the jetty brows and lashes 
beneath, it was gathered into a Greek 
knot at the back and bound about with 
a slender, gleaming cord which here 
and there lost itself in the shining 


196 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

meshes, just as his thoughts of her 
were wont to entangle themselves in 
golden dreams and fancies. 

She was looking down at the ground, 
abstracted, motionless, and serene. As 
she thus stood, she seemed an example 
in exaggeration of the old adage that 
every woman is a sphinx who sets a 
man a riddle to read. There was even 
something elfish in the effect of the in- 
congruity of the small head, set high 
on its white column, against the superb 
development of her imperial propor- 
tions. 

She let him come quite near to her 
before she lifted her face ; but all the 
while, under her apparently unstudied 
absorption, her attitude was that of one 
who waits. A moment afterward, with 
a smile, dazzling, enthralling — that be- 
wildered and bewildering recognition 
which the sleeping beauty may have 
accorded the fairy prince who came to 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 197 


wake her from her long trance — she 
slowly opened her eyes to his. 

“Am I to be your fate, Mr. Greer?” 
she said. She made a gesture in the 
direction of the room beyond toward 
which all were repairing, the drawing- 
room being now well-nigh deserted. 

He grew a shade paler as he stood 
looking down upon her. There 
was in his manner the calm, the 
severity of a powerful self-repression. 
He drew short, uneven breaths, and 
in his eyes there was a strange bril- 
liancy. 

“Am I to be your fate?” she 
repeated, with a half-mocking inclina- 
tion of the head. 

“ Yes,” he answered, gravely, his slow 
searching gaze diving deep into hers 
and holding it irresistibly for a 
moment. Then, in a bold impulse, the 
words breaking through all restraint, he 
added, fiercely, under his breath, “not 


198 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

only now, but hereafter, and always; 
surely you know it ! ” 

That same feeling which he had expe- 
rienced in their former meeting: the 
realization of the utter weakness, the 
futility even, of all spoken language 
between them made it impossible for 
him to adopt any form of convention- 
ality with her. A mysterious glamor 
was beginning to steal over his senses. 
He found it difficult to think clearly or 
to speak. Like some lustrous vision 
from the shadow land of dreams, a 
being whom in some far off, dim exist- 
ence he had once known and loved, she 
seemed to him, as with downcast eyes 
and indolent grace, she stood leaning 
against the tall pillar at his side. Her 
voice, though it fell upon his ears like 
the sound of a divine and distant har- 
mony, seemed to him not really expres- 
sive of the emotion which he could not 
but believe she felt, but to contain in it 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 199 


a note of chilliness, just as her brilliant, 
bodily presence could only half reveal 
the hidden pearl of her soul’s great, 
matchless beauty. 

Presently she turned and let her eyes 
rest fully upon him, deliberately, medi- 
tatively. Her expression betrayed 
neither hauteur nor a failure to com- 
prehend. But her look seemed to 
pierce him through and through, to lay 
bare the furthermost recesses of his 
nature as a bold lightning flash dis- 
closes in one brilliant revelation all that 
a moment before was veiled in dark- 
ness impenetrable. 

In another instant her low, tantalizing 
laughter, rippling, perfectly controlled, 
yet not wholly sweet, disclaimed the 
seriousness of his mood. She laid her 
hand lightly on his arm and moved 
with a careless jest through the open 
doorway to the room beyond, where 
the long table, bristling with cut glass, 


200 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

shone royally in the soft light yielded 
from old silver candelabra under their 
pink, vsilken shades, and sent forth sweet 
incense from deep bowls of June roses 
wafting their perfume before the alter 
of youth, and hope, and joy. 

It was an altogether goodly company 
there assembled, the seating of the 
guests being governed by that thought- 
ful regard for their congeniality which 
is so essential to the success of a din- 
ner. 

There were several celebrities pre- 
sent — those most important adjuncts to 
our modern entertainments — a poet, 
an artist, and also a young author 
whose exquisite purity of thought and 
diction had won for him a world-wide 
appreciation, and added another name 
to that long list of illustrious ones 
which are the State’s proud heritage. 
The women, without an exception, were 
pretty, vivacious, and responsive. The 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 201 


classic perfection of Margaret Pryor 
stood out in unusual contrast to their 
irregular beauty. It is rare in Ken- 
tucky that one looks upon a perfect 
outline, but rarer still to find an un- 
lovely countenance among the women 
of any grade. 

For several moments after they were 
seated Margaret maintained the cour- 
teous formality she might have ac- 
corded to any stranger presented to 
her for the first time. Not a word, 
not a glance betrayed the smallest 
recognition of a former meeting. 
Gradually the pained look in the 
young man’s eyes had given place to 
an expression of rigid determination — 
a stubborn refusal to adopt her tone in 
his replies ; but he proudly accepted 
the drift into which she forced the 
conversation. 

The third course was being served, 
A rising young Demosthenes, with the 


202 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

Kentuckian’s inborn proclivity for anec- 
dotal illustration, had just concluded a 
lively reminiscence, very graphically 
and humorously told. Laughter and 
spirited repartee floated around ; sub- 
dued strains of music stole in from 
the veranda ; the air was languorous 
with the fragrance of the flowers on 
the table and of those outside near 
the windows. When the curtains 
parted, from time to time, in the light 
breeze, the tropical perfume of lilies 
seemed to thrill the senses like an 
old memory fanned into sudden flame. 
Harvey Greer had grown silent. Every 
nerve, every fibre of his being seemed 
vibrating to some overmastering in- 
fluence. 

Margaret bent her head toward him. 
A lovely smile played about her feat- 
ures. She gave a brief, comprehensive 
glance down the table, and then low- 
ered her voice quite suddenly. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 203 

“Do you not appreciate the flattery, 
Mr. Greer?” she inquired. “To-night 
I preferred you to all others. So few 
of our actions are deliberate. Impulse 
or accident seems usually the governing 
principle. The premeditated choice of 
a companion in a long drawn-out sym- 
posium undeniably involves a compli 
ment. There are six other men pres- 
ent, any one of whom I might have 
selected ; but I chose you.” 

“Will you tell me why?” he asked, 
abruptly. In the tense tones of his 
voice there was something stern and 
compelling. 

“ Because you interest me,” she re- 
plied at once. 

“ Do not the others interest you 
too ? ” 

“ No.” 

She toyed a moment with one of the 
roses near her plate. 

“Do you want to go further and 


204 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

demand an analysis?” she asked, at 
length. 

“A man does not analyze when his 
happiness is complete.” 

“That is because he fears it will 
not bear the test.” 

“It is because he prefers to take 
unquestioningly the good the gods 
bestow.” 

“No one ever takes .anything unques- 
tioningly in the age in which we live. 
It is the very pathos of the cruel jest 
of our existence here that we should 
be doomed to a continual reaching out 
of hands for the shining bubble that 
always melts in our grasp. It i£ wiser 
to behold it from afar. When I was 
a little girl I broke up every intricate 
toy I ever possessed to see what was 
inside it. To-day I find myself inquir- 
ing into the meaning of things with 
just such unsatisfactory results.” 

“ Did you try to find a meaning for 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 205 


the liking which you are good enough 
to imply you feel for me?” he de- 
manded, too happy, as he had said, to 
speak with any attempt at seriousness. 

“ She looked at him again, quite 
steadily. 

“Yes,” she answered, with a slight 
reluctance, “ I did.” 

“And what was the conclusion that 
you came to?” 

“ I am half afraid to tell you, for fear 
you may not altogether understand.” 

“ Don’t hesitate about that ; my mind 
is accustomed to grappling with such 
abstruse and portentous subjects; and 
even if I can not comprehend all, at 
least I shall be grateful for whatever 
modicum my bewildered intelligence 
can attain to.” 

She laughed a little in a half-embar- 
rassed fashion. 

“ It would seem such a strange, un- 
womanly sort of thing to say.” 


206 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ It may possibly be strange, but it 
will not be unwomanly,” he responded 
quickly, still studying her face and 
drinking in her beauty in a kind of 
slow absorption, as if the process were 
deliberately prolonged. 

“ I like you for three things,” she 
began, slowly. “ In the first place, you 
interest me because of your enthusi- 
asms. We are, probably, of about the 
same age, and yet it is difficult for 
me to believe that I have ever felt, 
that I ever could feel, as strongly as 
I know intuitively that you must in 
regard to so many things. I have 
always the unsatisfactory realization 
that my powers of emotion have been 
exhausted, not through feeling too 
much, but from disuse. I confess to 
a certain curiosity as to how I should 
meet the supreme test, if ever I should 
be brought face to face with it. Then 
— I like you for your sincerity. You 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 207 


seem always to be so deeply in 
earnest,” she added, coloring faintly, 
a pink flush overspreading her white 
face like the glow from a sunset cloud 
on the features of a statue. 

“Well, I am in earnest,” the young 
man answered, without the slightest 
hesitation. 

“ But what is the other reason — the 
strange, unwomanly reason that you 
are keeping from me ? ” 

“ I don’t quite think I can tell you 
that,” she objected. 

“Yes, I think you will tell me,” he 
insisted quietly, and then waited for 
her to go on, very patiently. 

She did not answer for a time, but 
she smiled a little, in a puzzling .sort 
of way, at his dictatorial tone, which 
was the only acknowledgment she gave 
it. Apparently that also interested her 
as something novel and refreshing. 
She gathered up one of the pink rose- 


208 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

buds at her plate and began to ruth- 
lessly strip off the petals. 

“ Tell me,” he pleaded, but always 
with the same confident ring in his 
voice, never doubting that he would 
gain his point at last. 

** Really, I can not,” she replied, 
softly, suddenly lowering her eyelids. 

Several seconds passed. She was 
looking down at the flower in her 
hand. The strains of music outside 
grew louder, the hubbub of voices in- 
creased. No one was taking the small- 
est notice of them. It was as if they 
were quite alone, and so he did not 
forbear to let his eyes rest continually 
upon her with the burning looks her 
loveliness provoked. 

“ But you must tell me,” he whis- 
pered, scarcely realizing what he said^ 
feeling his brain whirl under the in- 
toxication of the spell which every 
moment she was weaving more tightly 
around him. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 209 


“ Once upon a time,” she began, and 
her words had a dreamy, far-away 
sound, blending weirdly with the mu- 
sic, “once upon a time, before going 
into a certain battle, Alexander went 
to the priestess that presided at the 
oracle of Delphi and demanded that 
she should go with him to obtain an 
augury ; but the priestess refused to 
go, saying that the day was not pro- 
pitious. Alexander insisted, but she as 
steadfastly refused. Finally, wearied 
with her obstinacy, he took her roughly 
by the arm and declared that she 
should go with him ; whereupon the 
priestess, seeing his unconquerable 
will, exclaimed in prophetic tones: 

1 My son, thou art irresistible ! ’ And 
Alexander, satisfied, went his way.” 

The last petal fell from her rose ; 
her lips parted in a slow, inscrutable 
smile ; her long lashes swept her cheek. 

A gleam, like a flash from a rapier, 

14 


210 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

leaped from his eyes to hers. He bent 
his head toward her. Her fan dropped 
from her lap to the floor, and as he 
leaned down to restore it to her, his 
hand brushed lightly against her fin- 
gers. He drew back, breathing heav- 
ily — and the glittering board reeled 
before him, like the fantastic vision of 
a dream ! 

At the same moment, above the 
pleading harps and the mirth and 
laughter, there was a low, sob-like wail 
just outside the window, and he quickly 
turned his head with an impatient 
movement, as if annoyed that for one 
instant, even, he must take his eyes 
away from the beautiful, alluring 
woman at his side. But no one else had 
seemed to heed it, and the sound was 
not repeated ; for like some wounded, 
hunted creature of the woods, the little 
figure from whose breast it had been 
wrung was speeding onward through 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 211 


the dark glades of the forest impelled 
by only one piercing thought : to shut 
out from her sight a scene which an 
irresistible impulse had driven her to 
witness, and from which, in the assur- 
ance thus received, she had suffered a 
stab too mortal and deep for any 
earthly cure. 


XI. 


All day a July sun had scorched the 
earth with scarce a tremor among the 
leaves. But toward five o’clock, when 
the shadows deepen and the lazy cattle 
begin to stir, a gentle whispering woke 
the trees, breathing a message of hope 
to the thirsting forests. 

George Anderson, faithful represent- 
ative of the Church Militant — the 
young Presbyterian divine of Walnut 
Hill, in the County of Fayette — was 
spending this first hour after the heat’s 
abatement among the flowers of his 
garden, rooting out the rank growth 
from about the tender plants, just as he 
patiently strove, but alas, with often 
far less encouraging result, to destroy 
the weeds of worldliness and impiety 

continually cropping up in the hearts 
( 212 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 218 


of his flock. He was a frail, earnest- 
looking young man of about thirty 
years of age, of medium height, with 
sandy-colored hair and moustache, and 
brilliant, deep-set eyes burning cease- 
lessly under his high brow with that 
look of tireless inquiry after Truth 
which one always pictures upon the 
faces of the early followers of Christ. 
For, in truth, the command that had 
come to his spirit, rousing him like the 
blast of a clarion out of the lethargic 
indifference of his former years, had 
contained for him all the sublime con- 
viction of that immediate revelation 
received by those believing ones more 
than eighteen hundred years ago. 
There were times when his counte- 
nance, otherwise without comeliness, 
shone as with an almost heavenly 
transfiguration ; when little children 
crept closer about him, and the tempted 
and the aged and the broken-hearted 


214 YOUNG GREER OE KENTUCKY. 

derived new strength as they looked 
upon him. 

A Virginian by birth, one of a large 
and impoverished family, he was abso- 
lutely without prospects save for that 
glorious heritage reserved for God’s 
elect. But his talents were such as 
might have enabled him to fill with 
honor a wider sphere of action than 
that afforded by the quiet rural district 
in which his lot seemed to be cast. 

For years, and with never an ambi- 
tious thought for self, he had labored 
among the little flock gathered weekly 
in the old stone church on the hillside, 
gratefully receiving the meagre salary 
that was doled out to him — at times 
grudgingly enough — throwing his 
whole soul into his work, and striving 
to acquaint himself with the lives of 
the people about him, their sorrows, 
their joys, their simple hopes and in- 
terests, so as to be truly both friend 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 215 


and teacher in all their temporal as 
well as spiritual conditions. 

But of this number there was one 
who, above all others, filled him with 
anxiety and awoke the most sensitive 
chords of his nature. 

All day she had been in his thoughts. 
And how his heart leaped at her very 
name ! With what unspeakable solici- 
tude it yearned for her at dread of the 
world’s rough ways — the vivid, impul- 
sive, wholly fascinating little creature 
that had flashed across his path in the 
first dawning of his manhood, dazzling 
him with her charm and almost blind- 
ing him to her imperfections. She was 
scarcely more than a child in those 
days, he recalled, as he stood a moment 
leaning on his hoe, shading his eyes 
with his hand from the sunlight, and 
looking longingly down the slope lead- 
ing toward the narrow lane that skirted 
the premises to the left. He had always 


216 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

called her by her name, it pleased him 
to remember — such a very pretty name 
as it was! Dorinda! How lingeringly 
one always pronounced it, as if loth to 
let it pass the lips ! 

But, like a flower that springs into 
blossom in a single night, she had 
seemed to him to suddenly undergo the 
marvellous transformation of the young 
girl into the mysterious state of woman- 
hood with all its inexplicable varia- 
tions that lie beyond. And so, in view of 
this, a new and constant perplexity had 
been disturbing him of late. For some 
time past, there had been certain things 
in her conduct he was at a loss to com- 
prehend. For weeks she had not been 
to church. That beautiful, divine love 
which he strove so strenuously to 
reveal to her, and which shed so holy a 
radiance on his own existence, had been 
cast aside as a worthless thing. How 
was he to make her understand it? 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 217 


With such natures as hers, he felt con- 
vinced that the love of God, in all its 
matchless strength and glory, is only 
awakened through the undying devo- 
tion that sometimes springs up in the 
poor human heart for one of His weak 
and erring creatures ; just as with oth- 
ers the moral sense is never fully 
aroused until that awful moment when 
the soul is shaken to its utmost depths 
by a profound recognition and repent- 
ance of some especially heinous sin. 

Presently he laid aside his implement 
and began to pace uneasily up and 
down the garden path, his hands 
clasped behind him, his head bowed in 
meditation. It had been ten days or 
more since he last saw her, and as 
his mind dwelt upon her flushed cheek 
and the feverish brilliancy of her eyes, 
which at the time had only vaguely 
disturbed him, a painful foreboding 
suddenly took hold of him, thus, for a 


218 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

moment, his spiritual fears in regard to 
her being instinctively supplanted by a 
natural apprehension for her physical 
well-being. If she should be ill, if she 
should have to suffer — poor little shorn 
lamb — how earnestly he besought that 
the wind might be tempered to her ! 

But as he pondered thus, his great 
soul seeming to hover protectingly over 
her in the supreme tenderness of his 
nature, all at once another and even 
more blinding alarm stabbed him to the 
very heart’s center, the thought slowly 
evolving itself out of the intricate work- 
ings of his troubled brain into a definite 
form — the form of Harvey Greer ! 

In another moment he had bowed his 
head in his hands as there sprung to 
his lips a prayer of such deep and ter- 
rible contrition that the dark veins 
about his temples seemed like heavy, 
animated cords burrowing beneath the 
flesh. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 219 


“ Father, forgive me, I know not what 
I do ! Is it not for this, for this, O God, 
that I have waited and trusted and 
prayed — that the knowledge of Thy 
love more precious than any earthly 
thing, should, in Thine own time and 
at Thine own election be thus revealed 
to her through the love of one of Thy 
chosen creatures ? ” 

For nearly an hour he walked there, 
wrestling in one of those fierce conflicts 
with self, out of which there sometimes 
comes either the darkest tragedy of the 
soul or the man’s complete apotheosis. 
When he finally raised his head, pale, 
exhausted, yet triumphant, his face was 
as the face of one to whom angels had 
appeared, comforting him. Involuntar- 
ily, his first glance turned toward that 
outward symbol of the Christian faith, 
the old stone church grayly outlined on 
the brow of the hill. The dense wal- 
nut trees, sighing above the sunken 


220 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

graves in the ancient churchyard, 
seemed to waft him a thought of peace, 
as there stole into his mind the well- 
known lines of Goethe : 

‘ 4 On every mountain-height 
Is rest. 

O’er each summit white 
Thou feelest 

Scarcely a breath. 

Only wait, soon shalt thou 
Rest too in death.” 

A moment afterward, with a charac- 
teristic resistance of any morbid emo- 
tion, he was vigorously applying him- 
self to his present duty, to the exclu- 
sion of all contemplation of the final 
rest, the neglected flower-beds soon 
showing the effect of his energies. 
And so, thus engaged, he failed to see 
the little figure moving steadily toward 
him down the scented lane, her pink 
gown fluttering in and out among the 
trees, like a rose tossed by the wind. 
In truth, she had entered the wicket 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 221 


gate at the side and was standing quite 
at his elbow before he was in any way 
conscious of her presence. On her 
arm she carried a basket, above whose 
contents a snowy napkin had been 
neatly tucked. 

Her bronze hair, swirling about her 
low brow at the wind’s soft dalliance, 
glinted and gleamed beneath the brim 
of her simple straw hat. There were 
quivering, changeful shafts in her 
great, luminous, warm eyes. Her lips 
were half parted in an intercepted 
smile, the visible manifestation of a 
sudden whim, her expression being 
that of a disappointed child who had 
planned a surprise and been discovered 
just before the moment of climax. 

When the young minister, hearing 
a stealthy footfall on the garden path 
at his right, turned and saw her stand- 
ing before him, as if conjured up by 
the mere power of his own thoughts, 


222 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

for an instant he remained speechless. 
Then the hoe fell from his hand, and 
a startled expletive escaped him as 
he raised himself, his face growing 
strangely white. 

She broke into a merry peal of 
laughter at his expense, the old sweet, 
ringing laughter — yet with a differ- 
ence ; for, as the last sound died away, 
a note of sadness lingered, like the 
echo to a chime of bells. 

She moved a little nearer under the 
shadow of the cool, green arbor. 

“Did I frighten you?” she asked, 
in her pretty, audacious fashion. “ I 
meant to,” shamelessly acknowledging 
her nefarious intent. In another sec- 
ond, the weight of the basket on her 
arm reminding her of the object of 
her visit, with all the air of an empress 
bestowing some mark of her favor on 
the humblest of her servitors, she ex- 
tended the offering. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 223 


“Take this to your mother,” she di- 
rected, loftily. “Yesterday was baking 
day, and I made those ginger cakes for 
her. There are two or three jars of 
currant jelly.” 

“ That was most kind and thoughtful 
of you, Dorinda,” the young man ex- 
claimed, heartily, as he relieved her of 
her burden ; “ and my mother will be 
much disappointed that she was not 
here to receive you. This is the first 
day in months that she has been off 
the place ; but early this morning she 
drove into town, and I do not expect 
her back until nearly nightfall. These 
pilgrimages are serious affairs, you 
know,” he concluded, smiling pleas- 
antly, too honest, however, to express 
a regret on his own part for the for- 
tuitous circumstance that had devolved 
the amenities of a welcome solely upon 
himself. 

“Yes,” she admitted, mechanically, 




224 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“the drive is very long.” She had 
taken the seat he offered, the rustic 
bench near the trellis over which a 
grape-vine clustered luxuriantly, and 
taking off her hat, leaned her head a 
little wearily against one of the slender 
posts. Then it was that he was con- 
scious for the first time of the great 
change in her that the past few weeks 
had wrought. Her spasmodic gayety 
of a moment before only seemed to 
enhance the look of suffering deeply 
lined on the delicate features. She was 
pale, paler than he had ever seen her, 
he noted, her swart, smooth cheek 
being overspread with a grayish tone 
in marked contrast to her customary 
bloom. But not only had the brilliant 
cherry color completely disappeared, 
but there were dark, ominous lines 
under the amber eyes that bespoke 
sleepless nights and dire, suppressed 
emotion. Her little hands — and never 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 225 


had they seemed so frail to him, so 
slenderly beautiful — lay very quietly 
in her lap with seldom a relapse into 
the old impatient, nervous movement. 

He sat looking- at her in silence, pro- 
foundly touched, yet unwilling to 
appear to notice the piteous change. 

“ Such a long time as I have been 
trying to get here,” she said at length, 
pushing her hair back from her brow 
with a tired gesture, and rousing her- 
self as with an effort, “ Do you think 
your mother will like the cakes?” she 
inquired eagerly, turning a wistful face 
toward him. 

The minister's eyes brightened a lit- 
tle at the question. 

“I am quite sure she will,” he an- 
swered, gravely. 

“ Is she better — do you think she 
will soon be well?” she asked, then 
suddenly paused, seeing the look of 

pain that shot across his face — that 
16 


226 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

swift, sharp contraction of the muscles 
about the mouth by which the sensitive 
nature is betrayed. 

“No, Dorinda,” he replied, sadly, 
after a moment, “ I think it may be a 
long, long time before she is well 
again, if ever in this world. But we 
must do all we can for her this winter, 
and try to save up a little money, so 
that we can get her down to Florida in 
another year ; there’s no telling what 
the mild climate might do for her,” he 
concluded, an enforced cheerfulness 
animating his .speech. And then, the 
beautiful unselfishness of his nature 
asserting itself, unwilling that his own 
private sorrow should cast even a mo- 
mentary shadow upon her, he strove to 
direct her thoughts into another chan- 
nel. 

“Will you not come into the parlor?” 
he presently suggested, somewhat over- 
whelmed in his unfamiliar experience 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 227 


as host. Hospitably eager to bestow 
some special courtesy upon her, he was 
yet completely at sea as to the form of 
entertainment it would be best to offer. 

“Will you not come into the parlor, 
and let Aunt Lucindy make you a — a 
well, a mince pie, for instance — how 
would you like that?” he beamingly 
proposed, half rising from his seat, as 
if already assured of her acquiesc- 
ence. 

Dorinda regarded him quite steadily 
for a long time, a look of such drollery 
depicted on her countenance that it 
almost seemed as if all her old vivacity 
had returned ; and the young minister, 
conscious of having blundered in some 
blind fashion, but still not knowing 
precisely in what way, nevertheless felt 
as if he had hit upon a lucky device 
to restore her drooping spirits. 

She gave him finally an amused, 
sidelong glance, accompanied by a be- 


228 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

witching little backward dip of the 
head, and lowered her eyes demurely. 

“ I believe I will not take any mince 
pie to-day, thank you,” she announced 
decidedly, “ and I very much prefer to 
stay here,” calmly remaining seated. 

But suddenly becoming contrite at 
the sight of his crestfallen, disap- 
pointed aspect, with ready tact she 
sprang up with a cry of delight. 

“ Oh, those lovely sweet peas over 
there by the garden-wall ! Will you 
give me some of them ? I should so 
much like to have a few.” 

He rushed off to despoil his vines, 
only too delighted to discover that any- 
thing of his had found favor in her 
eyes. He came back in a short while, 
his hands filled with the delicious pink 
and white and purplish blooms which 
he had awkwardly made into a taut, 
variegated nosegay of titanic bulk. 

But even in that little time, he 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 229 


observed that her former listlessness 
had returned, and that she had again 
wandered off into that far-away dream- 
land of the soul in which he needed 
naught beyond the intuitive conviction 
of his own heart to assure him that he 
bore no part. What could she be 
thinking of in those lonely flights, he 
wondered, her eyes turned so wistfully 
toward the golden glory of the distant 
western hills. 

“ I am so tired — I think I should like 
to go away,” she declared at length, 
breaking the long silence with a move- 
ment half petulant, half despairing. 
She let her arms fall heavily to her 
side, then raised them in sudden im- 
patience. There was a tremulous 
vibration in the sweet young voice. 
The damp tendrils of hair clinging 
about her neck and temples increased 
her child-like appearance, and in some 
way added a woeful touch. 


230 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

But he seemed neither to heed nor to 
hear. For several moments he had not 
dared to trust himself to look at her. A 
mighty surging was in his ears. The 
habitual self-control of his strong 
nature, shaken by the unexpected hap- 
piness of her presence, was beginning 
to waver. To see her sitting there by 
his side among the flowers just as if she 
had not meant to leave at all ; to hear 
the birds singing in the branches above 
them, and the drowsy tinkle of the 
sheep bells in the distance ; to share this 
and all the other sweet country sights 
and sounds with her, not only now, but 
always and always — what wonder the 
thought came to him, and that he 
turned away his eyes ? 

“ I think I should like to go away — 
away — away,” she repeated, drearily, 
“ I am so very tired.” 

This time something caught his ear. 
He looked up quickly. Could this be 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 231 


anything more than the natural restless- 
ness of youth under the restraints of a 
too monotonous existence ? The possi- 
bility that any man could know her and 
yet be indifferent to all her warm, bright 
loveliness could not occur to him as a 
plausible basis of conjecture. And yet, 
her words, though they left a sting, in 
some vague way seemed to lift a stifling 
burden from his breast. He turned to 
her with a gleam in his eyes. 

“ If you should go away, Dorinda,” 
he said, earnestly, u there are some who 
would be very lonely and sad, and there 
are others,” here he hesitated an instant 
before he went on more gravely, “there 
are others to whom life could never be 
the same again.” And then quickly 
reverting to the old simple friendliness, 
he added at once, but with a slight 
embarassment : 

“ I was beginning to fear that you 
might be ill ; it has been so long since I 


232 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

have seen you. That is why the sight 
of you startled me, I had been thinking 
of you all the afternoon. I wanted to 
ask your cousin about you one day last 
week when I passed him on the road, 
but he was not alone, he was with Miss 
Pryor, and I saw him for only a 
moment.” 

A flush painful in its intensity swept 
to her brow, but before he could notice 
she had buried her face in the flowers. 
It was several seconds before she could 
control her voice sufficiently to answer 
him, but when she lifted her head there 
was a cold defiance in her manner, a 
passionate reproach in her reply for 
which he was wholly unprepared, and 
which was, in fact, only a bitter, indefi- 
nite cry of pain wrung from her tor. 
tured heart. 

“You are finding fault with me be- 
cause I do not go to church,” she ex- 
claimed resentfully, her quivering face 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 233 


becoming all at once hard and set. 
“Well, I’m never going to church any 
more ; it is just as well that you should 
know it once for all. I do not love 
the God you preach about — do you 
hear? I do not love him any more.” 

The young minister drew back as if 
stung by a blinding flame, her childish 
revolt containing for him a far deeper 
and more serious meaning than the 
rebellious irreverance of her reckless 
words. For a long time he was silent. 
He leaned one elbow on his knee and 
bent his head upon his hand, thus 
shielding his face. Now and again his 
lips moved as if in prayer, but other- 
wise he remained as motionless as a 
bowed statue of grief. His over-sensi- 
tive conscience, only too quick to refer 
all error among his people to some 
fault or omission in his own ministry, 
was, indeed, suffering the most hum- 
bling pain. How poorly, then, had 


234 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

he delivered Christ’s perfect message 
to her! 

In that moment all the dross of 
earthly feeling seemed to him to be 
consumed in the wrathful glance of 
a justly offended God. A mist swam 
before his eyes. The touch of a timid 
hand upon his arm seemed to bring 
him back into a strange world in which 
everything was unfamiliar. He slowly 
turned his eyes upon her, still not 
speaking a word. 

“ I did not think — that was very 
rude,” she whispered, drawing a little 
nearer to him, half frightened at the 
sorrowful depths in his eyes, and has- 
tening to atone. “ Forgive me — I was 
not thinking what I said.” 

Something like a groan struggled to 
his lips. “Oh, child, child!” he mur- 
mured, brokenly and with such infinite 
pity and fervor in his voice. “ If you 
yrould only believe that it is not my 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 235 


pardon that you have need to ask — 
no t mine!” 

Dorinda regarded him wonderingly 
for a moment. Afraid of again hurt- 
ing him, she said nothing to this. 
Presently she reached down and gath- 
ered up her straw hat that had fallen 
to the ground. She began slowly to 
twist a garland of grape leaves about 
the brim, deftly tying the long stems 
with the delicate blades of blue-grass 
that shot up in a tiny border about 
the path. 

She was reminded that it was grow- 
ing late, and that it was time that she 
should take her leave, for already a 
flock of birds was circling toward the 
shadowy churchyard, coming home to 
their nightly quarters ; yet she did 
not wish to make her departure too 
abrupt. 

“ Did your strawberries do well this 
summer?” she asked, irrelevantly, 


236 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

glancing toward the sterile looking 
beds in the distance. 

“Fairly well,” he answered. “We 
seldom have a fine crop ; but we need 
so few.” 

“We had a very fine crop, indeed. 
We made gallons of preserves.” Then, 
a look of disgust tracing itself across 
her features and her brows contracting, 
“ Ugh ! how I hate strawberry pre- 
serves ! ” she asserted, violently. 

“You mean you hate to eat them 
after they are made, or to make them 
before they are eaten, which?” he ques- 
tioned, smiling a little, very patient 
with her, but still sorely troubled. 

“ Both. I meant to make them, 
though — to be mewed up all day over a 
hot stove stirring the horrid stuff with 
a spoon ; that’s what I hate most of all.” 

“ It must be a tiresome thing to do,” 
he admitted, sympathetically, readily 
throwing himself into an appreciation 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 237 


of her woes. At the same moment it 
occurred to him that this was the first 
time that he had ever heard such a 
complaint from her. “The child has 
simply grown into a woman,” he re- 
flected ; “ her faculties need wider 

scope,” and in this conclusion there 
seemed much to hope for, and only 
a little to regret ; but it was the very 
womanliness that was in her to which 
he now strove to make appeal. 

“ Dorinda,” he began in some hesi- 
tation, the broad charity by which he 
judged every action causing him to 
shrink from appearing in any way to 
condemn her, “ do you ever try to think 
of how much happiness you are bringing 
into the lives of other people by being 
always the faithful, good, little girl you 
are in these simple household duties ? If 
you would do that, it would make your 
tasks seem lighter, I am sure. Do you 
know,” he went on, letting his thoughts 


238 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

take the drift into which they so natur- 
ally tended, “ it sometimes occurs to me 
that that is the whole meaning of the 
lesson of love : the sacrifice of self that 
always is involved. And who can cal- 
culate the value of these sacrifices upon 
character, or estimate what miracles 
love works in the human heart, even,” 
and here he halted, his mind turning to 
his own recent struggle, “ even to the 
extent of surrender of the object itself, 
when it would seem that some higher 
good is to be attained.” 

She gave a startled glance into his 
face, growing suddenly pale, and in 
that glimpse she discovered, in a 
bewildered fashion, that he too was 
undergoing some frightful inward 
strain, equal to, if not beyond, what the 
moment meant to her. 

“ Could you,” and she breathed rather 
than spoke the words — “ do you mean 
to say that you could give up the person 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 239 


you loved to — to some one else — could 
you do that ? ” 

He looked away quickly for an 
instant, but she could see how the hand 
against the bench trembled, could hear 
his hurried breathing, as of one who 
runs a race, every nerve and muscle 
strained to reach the goal. 

Without suspicion of the swift torrent 
of emotion which had forced the ques- 
tion to her lips, thinking rather of his 
own sorrowful renunciation, he com- 
pelled himself to answer her with what 
calmness he was able to assume. 

“ With God’s help ” he said, huskily, 
“ I think I could, if I believed it to be 
His will. But it would be hard," he 
cried, fiercely, his voice rising as all the 
pent-up control which he had so long 
practiced threatened to break loose, 
“God knows it would be hard ! ” 

The girl rose and slowly put on her 
hat. 


240 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ I must be going,” she said, softly, 
not looking toward him. 

They walked down the garden path 
to the gate leading out on the lane 
beyond. Only a word or two passed 
between them, from time to time ; but 
when they had reached the woods that 
adjoined her home, she insisted that he 
should go no further, and he obeyed 
her without protest. He was turning 
away, when, as by an impulse, he 
wheeled suddenly and held out his 
hand to her. She looked at it a mo- 
ment as she placed her own in it; 
browned and roughened as it was by 
work and exposure, it was yet the hand 
of a gentleman, manly and sincere. 
But even in that moment as her glances 
fell upon it, there arose in the j^oung 
girl’s mind a contrast with another 
hand with which she was well familiar : 
a hand of singular strength and beauty, 
whose touch was as fire to her. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 241 


“ Dorinda,” he said, simply, “ if ever 
you are in any trouble, you know I am 
always your friend. It is often some- 
thing to have a friend outside of one’s 
own household, some one who can un- 
derstand even better, perhaps, than it 
is possible for any of them. And we 
have known each other so long, so long 
— even Harvey himself can not know 
you as I do.” 

He had forced himself to speak that 
last, difficult as it was for him, but no 
sooner had he done so than he regretted 
his temerity. For the color that flamed 
over her in an overwhelming shame 
and confusion was a surer confirma- 
tion than he found himself yet strong 
enough to bear. 

“You are always good to me,” she 
managed to say, “and you know I 
thank you for — for your friendship.” 

Then she broke away, and soon the 

little pink, fluttering figure moving in 

10 


242 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

and out among the trees was only a 
blurred and indistinct vision. 

He stood watching her, the sunlight 
falling in a flood of glory about her, 
the great human longing in him refus- 
ing to be silenced, until she had passed 
the summit of the hill, and the deep 
shadows, wrapping her in their purple 
mists, closed her from his view. Then 
it was there arose to his lips that 
same agonizing cry of contrition that 
once before that day had shaken him 
to the utmost foundations of his being : 
“ Father, forgive me, I know not what 
I do ! ” 


XII. 


Beyond the crest of the hill the path 
crawled obliquely toward the heart of 
the wood and its cool, mysterious, 
many-voiced depths, wherein, always, 
lurking shadows seemed to brood, as 
if the nymphs of Artemis were hiding 
the purple garments of their weaving 
behind the bristling undergrowth and 
the luxurious tangle of clambering 
vines. At this hour, in the violet- 
tipped glimmer of the waning day, the 
very boles of the trees seemed to hold 
a grimness of suggestion and to dart 
blackly out of the murky light as if 
called into existence by some secret in- 
cantation at the whim of the presiding 
deity. Swarms of insects floated in the 
uncertain haze, and there was a cling- 
ing moisture in the air that betokened 

( 348 ) 


244 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

rain, and which, laying hold of one’s 
garments like a tangible thing, added 
to the weirdness of an effect height- 
ened by rank odors and a vault-like 
oppression. Dorinda delighted in the 
spot. Here the savage instincts of 
her nature, breaking from their leash, 
could revel in a relaxation wholly un- 
observed, as there vaguely floated into 
her remembrance delightful intima- 
tions of mountain glen and cavern — 
the beloved environment of her ear- 
liest years. 

When she had reached a favorite 
nook, well screened in its leafy inclos- 
ure, she threw herself full-length upon 
the turf in a freedom of abandonment 
that was all her own, and spreading out 
her arms to the wind as if inviting its 
approach, she half closed her eyelids in 
an ecstacy of release. 

Her brain, throbbing painfully under 
the strain of weeks of pent-up emotion, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 245 


gradually became quieted, yielding to 
the soothing power of influences har- 
moniously blended to her mood. She 
even seemed to renew, in some occult 
fashion, a sense of kinship to the wild 
things about her, an affinity that they 
also appeared to perceive and dumbly 
to respond to. A flying-squirrel whirred 
above her head, and she gaily called to 
the little creature as it passed. It lit 
upon the tree under which she lay, show- 
ing no alarm when she arose and drew 
nearer, and a yellow-hammer, regarding 
her, for a moment, with an air of judi- 
cial neutrality, finally concluded that 
her presence was not to be resented as 
an offense, and also remained within 
touch of her hand. 

She lay fora long time, absorbing 
through every channel of her being the 
magical spell of the forest, stirred with 
a deep, sensuous delight, and oblivious 
to everything save the witchery of the 
hour. 


246 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

But she was presently startled by an 
unusual sight in that quarter of the 
plantation. A graceful, white-robed 
woman slowly sauntered down the cool, 
dim aisles, the sinuous undulation of 
her movement among the long grasses 
suggesting the stately progress of a 
swan over the blue-green waters of 
some wind-stirred lake. In an instant, 
another figure was indistinctly seen in 
glimpses through the bewildering net- 
work of the branches — the figure of a 
man walking with firm, brave step, now 
and then pausing in the earnest heat of 
conversation to turn his glances full 
upon the woman at his side, and always 
bearing himself loftily erect with a cer- 
tain grave dignity of demeanor like a 
victor triumphing in his might, yet a 
little serious, as one should be, after a 
hard-earned conquest. 

They were drawing nearer and 
nearer, Margaret’s smooth voice in the 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 247 


distance lending itself to Harvey’s fer- 
vid tones, like a soothing flute-note to 
an impassioned obligato. 

Benumbed, longing frantically for 
flight, yet powerless to move hand 
or foot, with hungry, burning eyes, 
and nostrils dilated in quick-recurring 
breaths, Dorinda lay peering through 
the thicket. 

At the first sight of them, it was as if a 
sword of flame had pierced her through 
and through, and all her veins ran fire. 
But gradually a horrible stiffening 
seemed to possess her limbs ; her eyes 
became fixed in their intensity of gaze ; 
her lips were dry and parched. She 
crouched pantingly on her elbow, 
at one moment putting up her hands 
to her face to shut out the galling 
sight, the next, straining her eyes to 
get a better view of the resplendent 
woman whose beauty, if it had im- 
pressed her powerfully upon her last 


248 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

witness of it, now, in the still bitterer 
pain of the present moment, seemed 
enhanced to a tenfold loveliness. 

Margaret’s thin gown, cool, restful 
to the eye under the green canopy, 
shone with a dazzling whiteness when 
an occasional ray of sunlight fell full 
upon her. All nature seemed show- 
ering benisons and approval. Birds 
sang blithely in the low boughs ; the 
wild flowers lifted their heads and 
smiled; even “the thorn -tree had a 
mind to them” as they passed. 

For a time their speech fell upon 
Dorinda’s ear as only an indistinct 
murmur blending itself with the soft 
whispers of the wind in the shivering 
branches ; but, as Margaret’s light gar- 
ments swept past the shadowy retreat 
where the young girl lay concealed, 
every word was plainly audible. 

At the sound of Harvey’s voice, Do- 
rinda started, even half -rose to her 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 249 


feet, as if distrusting her very ears, 
then sunk heavily back into the under- 
growth, a wild, bewildered look over- 
spreading her features ; for, though 
belonging unmistakably to him, it was 
not the voice she knew. Low, vibra- 
tive, intense, it had completely lost the 
old careless, ringing tone, and seemed 
to contain deeper and altogether differ- 
ent shades of meaning — thrilling, har- 
monious, soul-stirring depths that had 
never waked for her. Something of 
its concentrated passion seemed to 
have communicated itself to Margaret. 
Her usual tranquillity had deserted 
her. She suddenly halted, as if put- 
ting a sharp check upon herself, 
veered abruptly to one side, hesitated, 
then drew a little nearer again, a look 
of almost terror in her eyes, as of one 
who yields, unwilling, to some myste- 
rious, dominating power. 

“I — I am not sure,” she whispered, 


250 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

imploringly, motioning him from her, 
“ even now, after all that has passed 
between us, I still am not certain of 
myself. I dare not consider what you 
will think. But these horrible doubts 
that come to me ! They seem to re- 
veal the weakness of my character as 
a mirror reveals a disfiguring blemish 
on a countenance otherwise not alto- 
gether poor and mean. Oh, do not 
think that I have not dreamed of be- 
ing the perfect woman you think me. 
God knows I have dreamed of it. But 
I do not know myself. Do you re- 
member my telling you once, just 
after I met you, of that feeling of dis- 
trust that I have always had as to 
how I should meet the supreme test 
of a woman’s nature, if ever it should 
be offered to me? I do believe,” and 
here she lowered her voice to a lin- 
gering, beseeching note of indescriba- 
ble sweetness, “ that it is being offered 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 251 


to me now in the beautiful, perfect 
devotion you give me, and I — all un- 
worthy as I am — I am not sure — 
I — ” 

He bent his head to her with a short, 
smothered laugh, and his gaze sunk 
ever deeper and deeper into hers until 
her eyes faltered and fell beneath his 
searching look. She tried to turn 
away, but his hands held her in their 
vice-like grasp. She was trembling 
and very pale. Then, suddenly, a 
wave of color swept over her. 

“ I am sure ! ” he cried, victoriously, 
as he caught her in his arms. 

In another moment with both his 
hands he had lifted her face to his with 
an eager, unrestrained movement, and 
their lips met. 

When, more than an hour later, 
Dorinda was able, with a mighty effort, 
to rouse herself from the trance-like 


252 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

state that bound her, as if by invisible 
chains, to the spot, a gentle splashing 
was heard among the leaves overhead, 
and the woods had grown quite dark. 

She lay for a time trying to collect 
herself, like one recovering from a 
blow severe enough to annihilate not 
only all physical strength but memory 
also. There was an odd sensation of 
dizziness in her brain ; a wavering un- 
certainty in her vision. She drew a 
long, deep breath and looked about her. 

Then the scene which she had just 
witnessed rushed over her in the full 
flood-tide of its meaning. She covered 
her face with her hands and cowered 
shivering among the branches. 

After a while she staggered feebly to 
her feet, but her limbs were heavy 
and moved slowly, as with pain. There 
had been a slight rainfall, and now a 
pale, filmy mist, delicate as a bridal 
veil, hung over the earth. Thin, vapor- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 253 


ous clouds obscured the moon. She 
could barely find the path in the dark- 
ness. Her moist skirts kept up a dreary 
flapping about her ankles as she 
walked. Now and then a sleepy bird 
called drowsily to its mate, or an owl 
hooted ominously from the branches. 
She felt chilled and tired, tired to a 
degree that she had never known 
before. 

When she reached the house, she had 
meant to go quickly to her own room to 
exchange her bedraggled garments and 
thus to escape notice, an instinct impell- 
ing her rather than conscious thought. 
But Micajah met her on the stairway. 
Alarmed by her long absence, the old 
man was just returning from her room, 
where he had been for the sixth or 
seventh time in quest of her. 

Even in the dimly-lighted hall he 
could perceive the strange look which 
shone from her ashen face, and the 


254 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

unnatural brilliancy of her dark, star- 
ing eyes. She shrank a little further 
into the shadow lest her dripping gown 
should betray her. 

He stared uncertainly down upon 
her, his peaked features drawn into an 
expression of painful solicitude, the 
timid, appealing look in his sunken 
eyes intensified to an expression of 
dumb entreaty. 

“Ye ben’t ailin’, D’rindy?” he cried, 
presently, the words breaking from his 
lips in a panic of foreboding that 
seemed all at once to reduce him to a 
state of utter limpness and indecision. 
He leaned heavily against the slender, 
old-fashioned balustrade, that creaked 
a little under the weight of his tall, 
bony frame, and waited for her to 
speak. 

“No — no — I am not ailing,” she 
said, hurriedly, but with a tinge of pet- 
ulance. “What made you think that? 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 255 


Nothing ever makes me ill. I am 
strong! ” A wan smile flickered about 
the little mouth, her enforced bravado 
belied by an aspect of weariness and 
ill-disguised suffering. 

“Did I make you uneasy? I — I 
think I must have fallen asleep in the 
woods,” she explained, steadying her- 
self with an effort against the dark 
wall, yet holding her small head 
proudly, like a sapling recovering its 
wind-bowed form after a gust that has 
humbled it to the earth. 

Mica j ah shifted his quid of tobacco 
to another position in his lank jaw, still 
keeping his eyes fixed upon her with 
curious intentness. 

“Oneasy, D’rindy?” he repeated, in 
his slow, drawling tones. “Waal, I 
sca’cely think thet my oneasiness air 
in the question, longside o’ them white 
cheeks o’ you-ns thet uster be pinker’n 
a peach-blow. I declar to goodness, 


256 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

D’rindy,” after a prolonged scrutiny, 
“a chipmunk ain’t much littler ! ” But 
suddenly growing serious, he leaned 
quickly forward and again peered ap- 
prehensively into her face, as if aghast 
with a new and even graver mis- 
giving. 

“ Thar ain’t nothin’ a-weighin’ on yer 
sperrits, D’rindy, to make ye look so 
powerful pale an’ puny?” he asked, 
softly, his voice trembling. 

The girl started visibly, and he hur- 
ried on, as if dreading a verification 
of his fears. “ Thar ain’t nothin’ I 
wouldn’t give to see ye peart an’ up- 
pity, same ez ye uster be. Nary 
wild-cat thet I ever seed ,” with consci- 
entious accuracy, dwelling with pride 
upon the subject of Dorinda’s alleged 
ferocity of disposition, “nary wild-cat 
thet I ever seed kin hold a candle to ye 
when ye air riled. Lord, now thar jest 
ain’t nothin’ thet I wouldn’t do for ye! ” 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 257 


he declared, breaking off in helpless 
confusion. 

Dorinda assured him drearily that 
there was nothing, absolutely nothing, 
that he need attempt, and tried to 
move along; but he interposed, with 
considerable trepidation, “ Cuz, if thar 
is anything thet ye’d like to hev me git 
ye — anything that I kin git ye,” a 
crushing realization of his own limita- 
tion in all matters pertaining to a spir- 
itual import weighing heavily upon 
him, “ I low to git it, not countin’ cost 
nor nothin.’ Las’ time I passed them 
big sto’es in Lexin’ton, I seed a yaller 
shawl a-hangin’ in a winder thet’d set 
ye off might’ly. Thet young gal over 
to the Gin’ral’s aint got nothin’ thet’s 
in sight of it, I’ll be bound. I’d know 
what Marier’ll hev to say about it,” 
scratching his head a little dubiously, 
the reminder of his wife’s economic 
tendencies and possible wrath at such 

17 


258 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

expenditure presenting itself with 
alarming distinctness, “but if yed like 
to hev it,” bracing himself, as if the 
mild forces of his temperament were 
heroically preparing themselves to meet 
an assault, “ I low to git it fer ye, sar- 
tin sure. Ye wouldn’t like to hev a 
yaller shawl, now, would ye, D’rindy — 
to w’ar on Sundays to meetin’ jest like 
a queen?” he inquired, somewhat hazy 
as to his ideas of royal attire in general, 
but little doubting that Dorinda, thus 
adorned, would equal it in splendor. 

“No;” Dorinda answered despond- 
ently, a swift moisture springing into 
her dry, aching eyes, “ I believe I don’t 
care for a yellow shawl. I don’t think 
there is anything you can get that will 
make me happy ever again,” she sud- 
denly admitted, a recklessness of de- 
spair breaking down her reserve, as the 
great wave of sorrow bowed her head. 
But in a moment she added, bitterly, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 259 

“ I don’t think that happiness and yel- 
low shawls are — are just the same,” 
her voice sinking into a little sob-like 
whisper that wrung his sympathetic 
old heart beyond the power of tears. 

He swept the sleeve of his faded 
coat across his eyes with a hasty gest- 
ure, and was dumb. 

“Thet’s so, D’rindy,” he acquiesced, 
after a long time, gazing sorrowfully 
down upon the dusty creases in his 
thick cowhide boots, and slowly shak- 
ing his head with philosophic convic- 
tion, “thet’s so. Ye mought be no 
more’n a whitened sepulcher in thet 
same yaller shawl — fer all thet’ it’s so 
soft an’ shiny with long fringe a-hangin 
to it like the silk on young corn — if ye 
air a-w’arin’ a achin’ heart in yer breast. 
But thar aint nothin’ I aint ready to git 
ye — nothin’ thet I kin git ye,” he sup- 
plemented, sadly. 


XIII. 


Harvey Greer saw the wane of his 
golden days with a regret that was not 
wholly melancholy in that it was sup- 
ported by the exhilarating power of a 
still more glorious anticipation. All 
that the past weeks and months had 
been to him he was no more able to 
compute than the earth can estimate 
the blessing of the sun that has 
warmed it into life and flower. Inspir- 
ing influences appeared to be at work 
in him — an increased mentality, a 
more vigorous imagination, and above 
all, a strengthening of the moral pur- 
pose, which up to this period of his 
career had been strangely dormant, 
being some of the results more plainly 
discerned of the new, revivifying force 

which had come into his life. In the 
( 260 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 261 


first hot rush of realization he had 
rather the feeling that happiness — 
that wild, poetic thing which had hith- 
erto eluded him — had accidentally 
turned in her sudden swerving so as to 
be caught in his eager, outstretched 
arms. But he afterward rejected the 
idea as pagan. Finding in Margaret 
Pryor’s classic loveliness the visible 
manifestation of all that his dreams 
had ever pictured, the final and only 
perfect embodiment of the ideal, his 
ardent temperament made it not diffi- 
cult for him to invest her with an in- 
ward beauty of which the outward 
seemed merely a fitting and graceful 
expression. Those complex, mistify- 
ing intricacies of character which oth- 
ers found in her, therefore could not 
exist for him. Never had he allowed 
himself a doubt of her ; too loyal a 
knight and true to mistrust her by a 
thought, whatever there was about her 


262 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

likely to mislead was easily and satis- 
factorily explained as natural femi- 
nine inconsistencies which every man 
ought to expect and submit to from the 
woman he loves. 

But there was an experience await- 
ing them to which he looked forward 
with a nervous apprehension that un- 
consciously implied a lack of faith — 
her meeting with his father and 
mother in their own home. That all 
there was to know of him and his 
parentage had been already explained 
to her by her relatives, the Pryors, it 
never occurred to him to question ; yet 
it was with a certain proud uneasiness 
that he impulsively made the proposi- 
tion that they should go in, one after- 
noon, when their walk had led them 
quite in sight of his father’s home. 

Margaret had been, for some mo- 
ments, admiring the quaint, variegated 
little structure with its gable roof and 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 263 

tiny window panes ; its light blue 
porch and green shutters producing 
an odd but not altogether inharmoni- 
ous effect against the dull-red brick 
of the building. She acquiesced most 
graciously, her usual sweet placidity in 
no way disturbed at the thought of 
this introduction to his nearest rela- 
tives; but it seemed to her strangely 
out of order that he should ask her to 
make the first call. She glanced down 
at her pale green organdie a little dubi- 
ously. 

“Isn’t it rather — rather unconven- 
tional?” she suggested, pausing just 
outside the picket fence and twirling 
her white parasol in slight hesitation. 

“Not in the least — -that is, it will 
not be so regarded,” he answered, 
stiffly, holding wide the gate for her 
to enter. 

She glanced quickly up into his face 
and an amused expression flitted across 


264 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

her features. She was silent. But as 
they approached the house from the 
side she uttered an involuntary excla- 
mation : 

“ What a lovely, picturesque old 
man ! ” she cried, enthusiastically. 
“The overseer, is he not? No — no 
— you look in the wrong direction. 
There, right there, standing by the 
cistern ! ” 

Micajah, having just drawn a pail of 
water, was leaning in a tired fashion 
against the tall, wooden pump, looking 
pensively out to the glowing west. 
He was in his usual work-a-day cos- 
tume of blue jeans and cotton shirt. 
His line head was bare, and the thick 
crop of iron-gray hair, which fell about 
his neck, probably, more than anything 
else, added the touch which so de- 
lighted Miss Pryor. 

At her inquiry the young man 
started, looked quickly in the direc- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 265 


tion she indicated, then turned and 
faced her steadily, a quiet dignity mani- 
festing itself in his words and manner. 

“He is my father,” he said, simply, 
after a moment, not a muscle of his 
face changing as he calmly made the 
statement. 

Margaret drew back as if he had 
struck her. She grew white to the 
lips, a horrified expression dilating 
her eyes. Then she broke into a 
forced, nervous laugh, shrugging her 
shoulders with a gesture of annoyance, 
as she looked fixedly on the ground. 

“ That is almost too ancient a jest for 
perpetration,” she said coldly, at length. 

A hard look was settling upon Har- 
vey’s face. But the very sternness in 
his manner seemed to invest him with 
a certain loftiness which commanded 
her respect. She observed him nar- 
rowly, still ill at ease, and not a little 
disturbed that he should be guilty of 


266 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

the bad taste of trifling with her in 
such a matter. 

“ Perhaps this differs somewhat from 
the jesting that you regard as too an- 
cient for perpetration, since it is both 
novel and real,” he said, dryly. “ That 
is my father, as I have just explained. 
Will you come and let me make you 
acquainted with him?” 

He was looking straight ahead of 
him in the direction where Micajah, 
who had not yet caught sight of 
them, was still standing, shading his 
eyes from the sun’s red disk, his 
benign countenance mellowed by a 
peaceful contemplation, as the depart- 
ing rays fell full upon him. 

Harvey gave her a moment to re- 
cover herself, which she did with re- 
markable rapidity and in the thorough 
manner with which she always per- 
formed every act. 

“ Pardon me,” she said, softly, but 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 267 


with a slight constraint, “that was a 
brutal blunder.” Then, as if nothing 
in the least unpleasant had occurred, 
she continued, suavely, “ I shall feel it 
a very great honor to know your father. 
Will you introduce me, please?” 

Harvey bowed gravely, and they 
both moved forward. 

It was at this juncture that Micajah, 
hearing the low murmur of their 
voices, turned and rested his eyes 
upon them in much confusion. 

As they approached, he stood shift- 
ing awkwardly from one foot to the 
other, having first lifted his gaunt 
frame into an erect, soldierly attitude, 
intending, in some way, to convey his 
appreciation of the dignity conferred 
upon him. 

But Margaret was quick to relieve 
him of his embarrassment. A lovely, 
winning smile played about her face ; 
she glided gracefully forward, 


268 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


“ Your son has been good enough to 
bring me to see you, Mr. Greer,” she 
affirmed, with admirable tact. “ I am 
Margaret Pryor,” holding out her hand 
with the utmost simplicity, “ I hope 
we did not startle you ? ” 

The old man gazed a moment in a 
kind of amused hesitation before he 
took the “white wonder” of her un- 
gloved hand into his own brown, 
horny grasp. 

“Waal, I can’t say ez that ye ain’t 
serpreesed me jest a leetle ,” he granted, 
“ seein’ ye all of a suddent like, an’ not 
hearin’ the rustle of yer wings,” a 
twinkle of merriment lighting his gray 
eyes in a quaint look of smoldering 
humor, “but ye air welcome, more’n 
welcome, thar ain’t no doubt ez to 
thet.” 

Margaret kept up an easy flow of 
conversation between them as he hos- 
pitably led the way toward the house. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 269 


She appeared to be much interested in 
all that he had to say about the success 
or failure, as the case might be, of the 
“ craps ” that year, and even went so 
far as to assume an expression of the 
liveliest sympathetic interest when, in 
his sylvan realism, he told her of the 
sow that had been gored that day by 
the bull over in the north pasture, and 
of the Alderney heifer that had rashly 
jumped into a ditch and snapped her 
forelegs “ teetotally, same ez a stick o’ 
peppermint candy.” She seemed in no 
way discomposed by Harvey’s moody 
silence, graciously appealing to him 
from time to time, as if amiably willing 
to include him also in their charming 
discourse. 

When they had reached the pretty 
vine-covered porch, with its great split- 
seated chairs, Micajah, seeing her evi- 
dent wish to linger here, was painfully 
perturbed between a courteous desire 


270 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

of yielding to a guest’s pleasure and 
the dread of his wife’s disapprobation 
if the righteous claims of the “ parler ” 
were thus lightly ignored. 

“It air a sight cooler out hyah,” he 
allowed, pausing on the threshold, “ but 
Id’know what Marier’ll hev to say 
about it,” looking steadily down on his 
heavy boots in a feeble attempt to hide 
the shame of his timorousness, “ Id’- 
know jest how she’d take it, if she was 
to come along and see ye settin’ stiff 
ez a ram-rod on one ’o them hard cheers 
’stid o’ restin’ easy an’ comfortable-like 
on the settee in the parler. Lord, now, 
I don’t take no stock in all them fine 
fixin’s an’ things, but Marier — waal, 
she sets a heap o’ sto’ by thet settee,” 
he volunteered, in mild persuasion. 

Possibly Miss Pryor felt the stirrings 
of a faint curiosity to test for herself 
the merits of the much lauded “ settee,” 
for she instantly arose and followed the 


toUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 271 

old man into the darkened apartment, 
which did not at once reveal the object 
of her search, as she was compelled to 
grope her way through an almost Cim- 
merian gloom, the damp, unpleasant 
odor of a room insufficiently aired 
being almost stifling. 

It was altogether a most hideous 
room, producing the painful impression 
of possibilities overlooked, like certain 
undeveloped types of character that are 
yet suggestive of great capabilities and 
strength. It was low and square, pos- 
sessing two broad, arched windows 
with many panes, and a cornice and 
center-piece of delicate workmanship. 
There were Nottingham curtains at the 
windows ; a Brussels carpet on the 
floor, with stiff, rectangular figures; 
and a marble-slab table on which re- 
posed a stand of flamboyant wax flow- 
ers, carefully guarded by a glass shade. 
There was also an old rattle-trap in the 


272 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

shape of a square piano, which pre- 
sented an appearance of gaping incom- 
pleteness, like a mouth denuded of 
some of its teeth, the result of the 
ivory having fallen from many of the 
keys. The “ settee ” — the fetich of 
Mrs Greer’s adoration — proved to be 
a huge, unsightly, hair-cloth affair, de- 
cidedly worn and somewhat rickety in 
its legs ; this was placed severely 
against the wall, as were also the stiff 
chairs, covered with the same chilly 
material and adorned with “ tidies ” 
done in bright red and yellow worst- 
eds. Margaret, having allowed her 
eyes to roam about the room with 
rapid comprehensiveness, was finally 
forced to the conclusion that the one 
object on which her glance could rest 
with safety was the high, beautifully 
carved mantel with its wide, old-fash- 
ioned fire-place, into which a great 
bunch of sweet-fern, newly gathered, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 273 


had been thrown, the fragrant, aro- 
matic herb offering a healthful con- 
trast to the vases filled with dried 
grasses and everlasting plants. 

Harvey’s picture on the wall seemed 
to afford even a stranger incongruity 
than his presence. She glanced uneas- 
ily from it to him. Some painful met- 
amorphosis appeared to invest him 
with an awkwardness she had never 
before discerned. She found herself 
regarding him critically and from a 
totally different point of view. She 
was conscious of an unreasoning irrita- 
tion, a sense of wounded pride, even an 
impulse of cruelty, which made the 
curves about her beautiful mouth look 
as if carved out of marble. 

They were quite alone, Micajah hav- 
ing left them on the threshold of the 
sacred precincts with a sly wink and 
the assurance that he’d “fetch Marier 

along soon ez she’d got on her Sun- 
18 


274 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

day clo’es,” therefore some attempt at 
conversation was quite imperative. 
Margaret’s manner of speaking the few 
commonplace words required, her ac- 
cent of courteous affability, chilled the 
young man like the sound of clods fall- 
ing upon a coffin. He presently adopted 
a tone that was as frigid as her own, 
finally wandering off into a stereotyped, 
didactic dissertation upon the relative 
charms of town and country life, which 
at any other time would have struck 
him as absurd. 

It was, on the whole, a relief when 
his mother, after a considerable delay, 
finally presented herself, flushed and 
panting, in the doorway, Micajah 
proudly following in the distance. 

In spite of Mrs. Greer’s prolonged 
preparations, her appearance was that 
of one whose clothes had been hurled 
on with a pitchfork, instead of after 
the usual method. The buttons up 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 275 


and down the taut waist of her black 
silk gown had been hastily and irregu- 
larly fastened, and gave the impression 
of being upon the point of completely 
bursting all bounds. 

It was evident that, in her excite- 
ment, vshe had washed her face and 
smeared it over, while insufficiently 
dried, with a thick coating of powder, 
which now stood out in flakes, giving 
her a most peculiar, mottled aspect. 
She wore a full white ruche at the 
throat, which seemed to heighten the 
rubicund tints of her blonde com- 
plexion ; and on the fat fore-finger of 
her right hand there was a gorgeous 
diamond ring, a huge cluster of tiny 
stones surrounding a larger one in the 
center. 

She made several grotesque little dips 
of courtesies in the doorway, consider- 
ably abashed, yet presenting a bold 
front withal, as if, in betraying her dis- 


276 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

comfiture, she was fearful of yielding a 
concession she was by no means ready 
to allow. 

Whatever Miss Pryor’s private opin- 
ion might have been regarding her 
prospective mother-in-law, it was to the 
credit of her good-breeding that she 
managed to assume all the outward 
deference and consideration she was 
able, under any condition, to display ; 
but, at the same time, there was want- 
ing a shade of the cordiality she was 
pleased to bestow upon Micajah’s less 
pretentious and more agreeable form 
of welcome. 

“I’ve been thinkin’,” Mrs. Greer ex- 
claimed, with an insinuating simper, 
“ ’ twas ’bout time we was gettin’ ac- 
quainted, my son there, bein’ over at 
Grassland mostly all the time since you 
come ; leastways we don’t see nothin’ 
of him these days,” settling herself 
more comfortably in one of the hair- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 277 


cloth rockers and moving violently to 
and fro. 

A cold look crept into Margaret’s 
eyes ; but she only smiled a little more 
sweetly, appearing not wholly to com- 
prehend. 

“ The country is looking so green and 
beautiful after the rain,” she said, 
cheerfully, changing the subject rather 
abruptly. “You can’t think what a 
delight the woods have been to me all 
the summer.” 

Mrs. Greer stared. 

“Well, the Lord knows it’s green 
she admitted, laughing, “ an’ its beau- 
tiful enough, too, I reckon, for them 
that likes it ; but ’taint my taste. The 
country’s too inhos/zVable for me,” 
shaking her head in depreciation. 
“ Give me a nice house in town, with 
an iron fence, an’ velvet carpets, an’ 
chandeliers, an’ articles of virtue, with 
plenty of servants to keep ’em clean, 


278 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 


an’ I’d be happy as a queen. I tell 
Micajah I’d sell the farm an’ move 
right into Lexin’ton any day.” 

Margaret gave a quick, sympathetic 
glance in the direction of Micajah’s 
subdued figure, the old man having 
slipped quietly into a chair in the cor- 
ner. 

“ Oh, no, no — this charming old 
place ! Mr. Greer is perfectly right in 
refusing his consent,” she cried with 
sudden energy.” 

“As to Micajah’s consent,” Mrs. 
Greer replied, a little severely, “ seein’ 
that every blessed acre belongs to 
me — well, the trouble ain’t so much to 
get Micajah’s consent as to find a 
buyer,” she broke off, with a caustic 
smile. “What with such a riproar” 
(Mrs. Greer was not above coining a 
word on occasions) “an’ racket of 
hard times through the country — 
banks breakin’, firms failin’, hurricanes 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 279 


blowin’, an’ the Lord only knows 
what’s to happen next, buyers is 
scarce enough.” 

“ Then, in the midst of the universal 
wreckage and instability, I think you 
might congratulate yourself upon the 
security of your own position,” Mar- 
garet suggested, blandly. 

“ Oh, we’re safe — safe as a body can 
be,” she hastened to declare. “ Har- 
vey’ll have a good, snug sum to fall 
heir to one o’ these days,” with a side- 
long leer, which Miss Pryor appeared 
to ignore. “ Eight hundred acres of 
blue-grass lan’ an’ — ” 

But Harvey suddenly cut short her 
enumeration of his future possessions.” 

“ Where is Dorinda ? ” he inquired, 
abruptly, springing to his feet. And 
then, before any one could reply, he 
had left the room, saying that he would 
go in search of her. 

He finally came back without her, 


280 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

however, and Margaret took occasion 
to bring the call to an end. 

“ Dorinda ! So there is a sister, 
also,” she mentally concluded as they 
left the house. “ Heavens ! Let us 
fervently hope that she’s an improve- 
ment on the mother!” In truth she 
had suffered much, and was by no 
means up to her usual poise in spite of 
her very gracious adieux. 

Just as they were turning out of the 
yard they encountered the object of 
her pious ejaculation. Dorinda was 
coming nonchalantly down the lane. 

She was neatly dressed in a light 
blue gingham gown, and she was walk- 
ing with a lithe, firm step, the spirited 
bearing of the little figure suggesting 
the swift movement of a gazelle as she 
darted in and out among the wild 
flowers near the hedge. Harvey’s 
heart rejoiced at the sight of her. 
Here, at least, was one who would not 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 281 


fail him. He called to her, almost 
gayly, as she approached : 

“ I have been searching for you 
everywhere, Dorinda. Where have 
you been hiding? This is Miss Pryor 
— I want you to meet her.” 

Dorinda paused, as if brought to an 
unwilling halt, looked from one to 
the other slowly, scrutinizingly, from 
under her sullen brows, and rigidly 
closed her lips. 

All at once a look of defiant hatred 
darted in a steely flash from her 
glance. Her form quivered passion- 
ately, and her color came and went 
with each uneven breath. She clasped 
and unclasped her hands in a fierce 
movement, at the same time giving 
a hunted, helpless look about her. 
Then, without so much as a word or 
nod, quick as thought, she darted past, 
and left them standing in speechless 
amazement looking after her rapidly 
retreating figure. 


282 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

“ What a beautiful, ferocious little 
creature!” Margaret exclaimed, as 
soon as she could get her breath. “ I 
did not know that you had a sister.” 

Harvey, inexpressibly annoyed at 
Dorinda’s most unaccountable conduct, 
and secretly deciding upon the form 
of punishment which experience had 
taught him to be best calculated to re- 
store her to a more tractable condi- 
tion — a complete ignoring of her be- 
havior, answered a little absently, as he 
withdrew his eyes impatiently : 

“ I haven’t — Dorinda is not a sister, 
but a distant cousin. Of course it 
comes to quite the same thing in the 
end, you understand.” 

A smile flitted across Miss Pryor’s 
features. “ Ah, I see,” she answered, a 
light breaking in upon her. 

During the remainder of the walk 
she was more sweetly courteous and 
more coldly formal than she had been 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 283 


at any time in their acquaintance. It 
was not until they had reached the 
doors of Grassland that Harvey broke 
the constraint that had grown up be- 
tween them, which he seemed to do 
by the mere force of his own magnetic 
power. 

He bent down his head to her in 
parting with all the old freedom of 
abandon, making a sudden gesture, as 
if he would dash away the mere cob- 
webs of hinderance the afternoon had 
revealed. But his face betrayed the 
agonizing dread in his heart. 

“ Margaret ! ” he cried, “ Oh, Mar- 
garet!” The tense ring in his voice 
thrilling her again with the same 
sweet, irresistible sway. 

She drew back, hesitated, then 
slowly, almost sadly, lifted her eyes 
to his. 

‘“Be a god and hold me 
With a charm ! 

Be a man and fold me 
With thine arm ! ’ ” 


284 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

she whispered, under her breath. 
Then, still laughing that vibrating, 
enigmatical laugh of hers, she slipped 
lightly from his grasp into the great, 
dark hall, and in a moment he heard 
the patter of her footsteps up the 
spiral stair. 


XIV. 

Scurrying storm-clouds swept them- 
selves across the lucid sky like a frown 
suddenly gathered upon the brow of a 
serene human countenance. Dorinda, 
sitting in the low window-seat of the 
darkening room, drew short, uneven 
breaths, as she pressed her burning 
cheek against the pane. The rising 
gale was an intoxicating draught fill- 
ing her veins with fire. There was a 
peculiar glisten in her great, dark eyes. 
She clasped her hands with spasmodic 
energy. The giant oaks swayed and 
trembled in the blast as if their very 
roots were about to be uptorn from the 
earth, and the western hills were lit 
with a lurid glare. Dorinda’s lips half 
parted in a smile. The wind whis- 

( 285 ) 


286 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

tling through the branches was some 
wierd flute-note of prophecy calling to 
her troubled soul ; the swift eddy of 
swirling leaves and grasses, a blinding 
force, cruel and irresistible ; and all the 
ominous rumbling of the approaching 
storm a deep organ-note of accompani- 
ment lending itself to her own wild 
mood. 

She did not hear the door open and 
quietly close behind her, nor the sound 
of hurried footsteps across the floor. 
But in the next moment there came 
one of those intense flashes of light- 
ning which seem to lay bare the 
minutest detail of surrounding objects, 
and before there followed the terrific 
reverberating peal that dulled her 
senses, in the brilliant revelation she 
saw Harvey standing at her side, his 
face white and anxious, his manner 
alarmingly suggestive. 

Even in that instant of awful, indefi- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 287 


nite foreboding, the thought that he 
himself was free, at least from bodily 
harm, came to her with an almost 
appalling sense of relief. A horrible 
pang shot through her and she felt her 
heart stand still as if stunned by the 
mere realization of all that he was 
to her. 

“What is it?” she panted, involun- 
tarily holding out both her hands to 
him, “ Oh, Harvey, what has happened ?” 
The words were like a sob. 

“ I have only a moment in which to 
tell you,” he answered, quickly. “ Come 
with me and I will explain everything 
as we go along.” He led the way from 
the room, and she followed silently, his 
suppressed nervousness instantly com- 
municating itself to her in a kind of 
electric shock. 

“ Get your hat and something to 
wrap around you,” he commanded, as 
they passed through the hall. “ Here, 


288 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

this is the very thing,” and he caught 
up his mother’s heavy, dark shawl from 
the rack, and pinned it closely about 
the little slim figure. “Now, there!” 
he exclaimed, glancing down with satis- 
faction upon her mummy-like appear- 
ance, “you can’t possibly get wet 
through that, I’m sure.” 

They were now out under the threat- 
ening sky, and he was hurrying her 
along in the direction of the stables. 

“ You see, I am taking your goodness 
all for granted, Dorinda,” he said, very 
gently. Becoming suddenly conscious 
of her quick breathing against his arm, 
he suddenly drew up and glanced a 
little anxiously into her face. 

“You poor child, it was a cruel shame 
to frighten you like that,” he cried. 

“ No — no,” she made haste to answer, 
distressed beyond measure that Harvey 
in his great need should find her a 
weak and unreliable sort of person, 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 289 


“I — I am not frightened — in the 
least.” 

“ The trouble is just this,” he stated, 
briefly. “ One of the children over 
there,” nodding in the direction of 
Grassland, “ is desperately ill, dying 
perhaps, and both the father and 
mother were suddenly called to Louis- 
ville last evening. Doctor Marshall 
wants a consultation. I am on my way 
to town for a physician ; we were afraid 
to trust a servant ; everything depends 
upon the utmost haste. Mar — Miss 
Pryor is alone. Dorinda will you go to 
her? Will you do this thing for me?” 

They had reached the stable and his 
hand was on the door. “I have sad- 
dled Lightfoot, and have explained to 
mother,” he said hurriedly, turning 
toward her. 

But the girl’s figure, had, all at once, 
grown strangely rigid and unyielding, 

the look of sympathy he had expected 

le 


290 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

to see upon her face being supplanted 
by an aspect of .sullen indifference 
which baffled and pained him consid- 
erably. He drew a little nearer, think- 
ing perhaps he had not read her fea- 
tures aright in the thickening gloom. 

“ There is absolutely nothing to do,” 
he declared, encouragingly, “no respon- 
sibility whatever — I only thought that 
your presence might be a comfort to — 
Margaret,” speaking the name with 
hesitation. 

This reluctance cut Dorinda like a 
scourge. A sudden flame leaped from 
her eyes for an instant and then the 
lashes were lowered. 

“ I will not go ! ” she said, defiantly. 
Harvey turned and stared. He had 
been fitting the key in the lock of the 
stable door, bending down his head to 
find the place. 

“ Pardon me,” he replied, stiffly, rais- 
ing himself to his full height before 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 291 


her, “ of course I had no right to ask so 
great a favor.” 

A storm of passionate color swept 
over the girl’s face, and a spasm of pain 
contracted the muscles about the sensi- 
tive mouth. But when she spoke again 
he was startled at her unnatural pallor. 

“ What does she want of me ? ” she 
broke forth, maddened at his calm. 
“What comfort would / be to her with 
her grand ways — what is that little 
sick child to me ! ” she flung out her 
arms with a cry of savage bitterness. 

He answered in the same cool, meas- 
ured tone of displeasure, “Nothing — 
nothing more nor less than the thought 
of all suffering and misfortune ought to 
be to every human creature. But even 
if this does not touch you, I had sup- 
posed that you cared enough for me to 
make a sacrifice for my sake. ” 

Sacrifice ! 

At the sound of that word the girl 


292 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

started, uttered a low, smothered moan, 
and drew back, staring wildly at him ; 
for had she seen it by some necroman- 
tic art suddenly sketched upon the 
firmament before her in letters written 
with a blazing brand, it could not have 
stood out with more awful distinctness 
and significance of import. If he had 
used any other word to convey his mean- 
ing, the probability is that she would 
have still remained obdurate, a little 
white statue of cruelty and hate. But 
by one of those dramatic strokes of des- 
tiny, whereby there is offered an eternal 
choice for good or evil, that was the 
word he used, and at the sound of it 
a violent trembling seized her limbs. 
She felt her teeth chattering in her 
head, her breath coming in gasps. She 
could have lifted up her voice and 
shrieked from the very agony of the 
tension she was enduring, as there came 
back to her the speech the young min- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 293 


ister had made that afternoon in the 
old garden, which, day and night, had 
haunted her ever since : 

“The whole meaning of love is sacri- 
fice ! ” 

How the words kept thrusting them- 
selves, like a visible thing upon her ; 
how they surged, and sounded, and 
deafened, with their ceaseless clamor- 
ing ! How they tortured her ! 

She felt her will, for the first time 
in all her existence, beginning to 
give way ; terrible, conflicting emotions 
seemed warring in her, pulling her now 
this way, now that way, as if the very 
angels of light and darkness were wrest- 
ling in that sublime and noiseless con- 
flict. There was yet a moment of wait- 
ing, of horrible indecision ; then, like a 
flower breaking suddenly into life and 
beauty, there came the glorious awaken- 
ing — the marvelous birth of the soul ! 

The little head drooped upon her 


294 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

breast, the color slowly drifted back 
into the white face, grown, all at once, 
soft and mobile. With a smile, radiant 
and inexpressibly tender in its maiden 
sweetness and dignity, she sprang 
lightly into the saddle without a word. 

“God bless you, Dorinda!” he cried, 
holding her cold hands one moment 
closely in his own. Then he pressed a 
little nearer to her, “ I am so glad I was 
not mistaken, after all, ” he said, fer- 
vently, in a low voice. 

In less than five minutes afterward, 
she heard the clatter of his buggy 
wheels out on the rocky lane, and knew 
that he was straining every nerve to 
make up for the time she had lost him. 

And oh, that mad, exciting ride 
through the forest, under the crackling 
boughs, with the blue flashes of light- 
ning, and the peals upon peals of thun- 
der ! 

Now there fell a great splash, like a 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 295 


ghostly touch on her cheek, now an 
eerie, mournful cry broke upon her ears, 
as some startled creature of the woods 
darted obliquely across her path, caus- 
ing her horse to swerve violently to one 
side. It had grown quite dark, and she 
had lost the path. But she pressed on- 
ward through the inky blackness, cut- 
ting her way into the night, feeling 
neither cold, nor fatigue, nor fear, her 
heart swelling with an inconceivable 
joy and triumph. And always, and 
always, and always, above the rage of 
the mighty tempest and the night- 
wind’s soughing dirge, like a blast from 
a silver trumpet, there rang out the 
words the young minister had spoken 
that day in the garden, all unmindful of 
his own loneliness and sorrow : 

“ The meaning of love is sacrifice ! ” 

When, in an incredibly short space 
of time — a little more than two hours 


296 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

later — Harvey returned from Lexing- 
ton with the man of skill, who was to 
bring healing in his touch, Margaret’s 
voice greeted them cheerfully from the 
doorway, as the young man sprang 
quickly up the steps at Grassland. 

“Edward is better — much better,” 
she cried, “ I think you really need not 
have gone, after all,” glancing beyond 
him toward the burly form of the hale, 
white-haired old gentleman who, with 
slow dignity, was just emerging from 
the shadow, taking off his gloves and 
rubbing his hands together with a 
rapid, nervous movement. 

But just at the moment when the in- 
troduction might have been expected, 
Harvey suddenly turned aside, his eye 
caught by an object all at once revealed 
by a moving flare of light from an up- 
per chamber window, as of some one 
carrying a lamp about the room. He 
leaned forward, a little blinded by the 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 297 


yellow blur of the old hall. Some- 
thing dark and still was lying in a 
strange, crumpled fashion a few yards 
to the left of the building near the 
curbing. 

“Dorinda — Dorinda has been with 
you?” he asked, quickly, the words al- 
most choking him in their utterance, 
still looking toward the distorted, mo- 
tionless thing near the curbing in a 
kind of fascinated stare. 

“ Dorinda?” Miss Pryor repeated, be- 
wildered. She threw a glance over her 
shoulder to him, at a loss to understand, 
then suavely held out her hand to the 
doctor, with a charming smile. 

With a stifled cry, the dawning hor- 
ror in his eyes freezing into a glassy 
fixedness of look, Harvey ran swiftly 
down the steps. Unable to act or 
think, spell-bound, he bent a moment 
above the little, lifeless figure. Then 
he gently put back the dark covering 


298 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

about her face, and with a groan he 
gathered her into his arms. 

As he came forward, staggering un- 
der the weight of his light burden, his 
face set and stony in its expression of 
impenetrable rigidity, Margaret, who 
had been conversing with the doctor, 
looked up, checked the exclamation 
that rose involuntarily to her lips, and 
quickly threw wide the doors for him 
to enter. It was evident from what fol- 
lowed that she had perceived the entire 
situation at a glance. 

Being a woman of steady nerves, 
having herself always well in hand, she 
was capable of performing with the ut- 
most ease what many a person similarly 
situated, through an excess of sym- 
pathy, and appalled by the mental 
shock, would have either utterly failed 
in, or done too blunderingly to be of 
use. 

She spoke a few low, hurried words 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 299 


to the physician, as she led the way to 
a bedroom at the farther end of the 
hall. 

When they had placed her on the 
bed, Margaret bent above the girl, and 
with deft, delicate touch, unfastened 
the clumsy shawl in which she was en- 
tangled. There was a dark bruise on 
one side of the head, and the eye lids 
were half closed. There was not the 
smallest flicker of consciousness. 

Dorinda lay motionless above the 
white coverlet, the little pale, upturned 
face strangely appealing even in its 
look of death. 

Margaret began to move softly about 
the room, busying herself in the 
prompt execution of all things needful, 
but asking no unnecessary questions. 

The physician placed his ear against 
the girl’s heart. After a moment that 
seemed like hours he lifted his head. 
Harvey pressed eagerly forward, then 


300 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

set his teeth in a hard, flint-like expres- 
sion as he met the man’s eyes. 

“This is very serious,” the doctor 
said, gravely. “ But the heart still 
beats.” Then he walked across the 
room and laid his hand gently on the 
young man’s arm as he led him to the 
door, speaking a word or two. 

Once outside the room, Harvey’s 
pent-up anguish of apprehension 
seemed to find some slight relief in 
movement. With long, nervous strides 
he paced up and down the hall, his 
head bowed as if in deep thought, his 
hands clasped behind him, his face 
seamed with pain. 

He had not dared to put the ques- 
tion, “Will she live?” But after a 
time he began to blame himself for his 
cowardice, the suspense was so terrible. 
A cold perspiration stood out on his 
brow, and an icy hand seemed grasping 
his heart. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 301 


When he entered the room again, 
the physician was speaking in a quiet 
voice to Margaret, after the prolonged 
and careful examination. 

“ She may continue in this condition 
for a considerable time. If she recov- 
ers consciousness at all, and speaks, she 
will perhaps be delirious. There are 
several very grave complications, and 
brain fever will probably ensue. You 
can take me now to the sick child — 
there is no danger that I will be 
needed here for a while.” 

When they had both gone, Harvey 
sat down by the bed. His eyes seemed 
to rivet themselves upon the beautiful, 
still face, as if he would fix eternally 
upon his memory every line and fea- 
ture. He was utterly despairing. 

By and by a sense of awful proprie- 
torship seemed to possess him, sitting 
thus alone with her in the dim light. 
He leaned above her until his lips 


302 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

almost touched her brow, timidly strok- 
ing the masses of bronze hair falling 
loosely about her. Her eyelids were 
closed now, and she appeared to be 
sleeping peacefully. Something in the 
way the jetty lashes swept her cheek, 
the childish look of the slim form, 
filled him with a passion of remorse 
and overwhelming pity. A groan 
struggled to his lips. He bowed his 
head in his hands and his frame shook. 

About an hour afterward, Margaret, 
passing the door on some errand for 
the sick child, entered softly. Harvey 
rose as she approached, but did not re- 
sign his place. They were both silent. 

Margaret stood for some moments at 
the foot of the bed, looking sadly down 
on its occupant. She had put on some 
kind of loose, white gown, and her 
golden hair was gathered into a low 
coil at the back of the neck. The 
gravity in her great, mournful eyes 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 303 


seemed to lend a womanly sweetness to 
her whole attitude ; but she was per- 
fectly calm. 

Presently her expression changed. 
Her eyes were fixed now upon Harvey 
in a look of surprised inquiry. She 
appeared to be studying him intently. 
But the young man seemed oblivious 
of her presence, wrapped in his own 
gloomy thoughts. 

As they stood thus, all at once there 
was a faint flickering of the waxen 
eyelids, a feeble, convulsive little sigh, 
and Dorinda slowly opened her eyes. 

With a startled cry Harvey sank on 
his knees at her side, and Dorinda, 
reaching up her arms to him with the 
trustful movement of a child, drew his 
head down to hers. 

“ Good bye, dear,” she whispered ; 
“ good bye ! ” 


XV. 

The view from the windows of the 
boarding house looking out upon the 
quiet streets of the old Virginian town 
was more than ordinarily depressing on 
a dreary January afternoon. 

After several languid but finally suc- 
cessful struggles with the wintry clouds, 
a sickly sun was beginning to gild the 
distant church spire and to gleam upon 
the lingering patches of snow in the 
fence corners, producing something of 
the same disheartening sensation one 
experiences in witnessing a forced and 
spiritless effort begun at the end of a 
wasted existence. 

With an energetic jerk that furled 
the ugly green blind in a flash to the 
ceiling, Harvey turned to stir the fire 

( 304 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 305 

in his open stove to a brighter blaze, 
at the same time casting an impatient 
glance about the bald, cheerless looking 
room in which, for the past four months, 
his nights and part of his days had 
been spent. 

“Confound it,” he exclaimed, reflect- 
ively to himself as he vigorously applied 
the poker to the smoldering coals, “if 
only a fellow could rid himself of cer- 
tain notions of comfort, many of them 
false enough I haven’t a doubt, there is 
no reason at all why he might not 
flourish in a barn, or a pig-sty for the 
matter of that. But, thank Heaven, the 
place is clean, at all events ! ” he men- 
tally concluded, stretching out his hands 
to the flame and sinking into the one 
comfortable chair the room contained, 
with the air of a man willing to extract 
from the situation whatever small grain 
of consolation such an admission would 

allow. 

20 


306 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

The desire, almost the necessity, for 
luxury, through a love of all the warm, 
bright, beautiful things the earth con- 
tains, was so essentially a part of his 
organism that even to Harvey Greer 
himself — when the subject did not 
serve as a target for epigrammatic 
flings at his own expense — it was 
often a matter of amusing conjecture 
whence had sprung those fixed, uncon- 
querable instincts of his nature which 
could not be traced to any hereditary 
influence or tradition, and which no 
possible condition of deprivation seemed 
able to destroy. 

But his thoughts on this particular 
afternoon were retrospective in the 
main. After all, the four months 
showed up in a fairly respectable 
record. Being a brilliant mathemati- 
cian, and possessing a most fortunate 
manner — courteous, deferential, yet in 
a high degree positive and self-reliant 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 307 


— he had taken good standing among 
the faculty at once, and his collegiate 
duties had been engrossing if not 
wholly to his taste. It was always a 
matter of regret to him that that old 
dream of a purely literary profession 
was thus, for a time, interfered with, 
through a manly realization of the 
importance of entering at once upon a 
vocation yielding a more speedy inde- 
pendence; but, with the characteristic 
confidence of his temperament, he 
never, for an instant, quite abandoned 
the idea that he would some day do 
great things in this most alluring line 
of work. 

However, in this brief time, he had 
written only one thing — a dainty, little 
fragment in the form of a prose-poem 
which was accepted by one of the lead- 
ing magazines, and, remarkable to say, 
published at once in the January num- 
ber. For his own part, he thought little 


308 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

enough of the effort, but possibly 
induced by some such motive as led 
Dante to paint the picture of an angel 
for his Beatrice, and Raphael to become 
a poet for “his lady of the sonnets,” he 
wrote it for the woman he loved, feel- 
ing a sense of infinite delight in this 
new departure, which could have been 
made but for her sake alone. Besides, 
it was his only method of communica- 
tion, since she had imposed the strictest 
silence upon him. 

Margaret’s wish that there should be 
positively no letters between them for a 
certain period, her desire that she should 
be left entirely free from any influence 
of his presence or the expression of his 
devotion was an exaction which ap- 
peared to him at first as an unreasona- 
ble absurdity that she should not have 
demanded. For a time he chafed under 
the restraint ; and the self-control which 
the peculiar situation forced him to prac- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 309 


tice frequently reduced him to a state 
of irritability that would have ended in 
a complete revolt against the severity of 
her measures, had he not been gov- 
erned by a feeling somewhat coincid- 
ing with her own. He wished her to 
be entirely certain of herself, and he 
felt that the security of affection, which 
would come from this long, unfettered 
communing with her own heart, could 
only be productive of a broader com- 
prehension and the utmost of happiness 
to them both. With a man incapable 
of rising to the height of perfect faith 
on account of some lack of earnestness 
and sincerity in himself, such a view of 
the case would have been an impossi- 
bility; to a weak nature nothing is so 
difficult as silence. 

Since that dark, tragical night at 
Grassland, it seemed that an eternity 
had passed. Margaret had left two days 
later, and their parting had been brief 


310 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

and unsatisfactory. Everything con- 
nected with the night was like a kind 
of confused and troubled dream which 
haunts the recollection yet never 
clearly unfolds its meaning. In that 
hour, when a little life had faltered, as 
if hesitating between time and eter- 
nity — had seemed to waver a moment, 
flicker, and then expire, all thought of 
self had been completely swallowed up. 

But Dorinda had drifted slowly, and 
it appeared almost regretfully, back to 
consciousness and strength. 

After a long illness of many anxious 
weeks her health was finally restored. 
Yet it was a new Dorinda that looked 
out upon the world with serious, quiet 
eyes, as if there had been revealed to 
her in that strange wandering of the 
spirit things not lawful to be uttered. 
However, this change was not fully 
manifest to Harvey Greer, whose duties 
had called him elsewhere almost as 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 311 


soon as the crisis in her condition had 
been passed. 

He frequently thought of the girl as 
he sat alone in the winter evenings. 
Sometimes he saw her as the spirited, 
vivid little creature she had appeared 
in those first weeks after his return 
in the summer; again, her paleness, 
the quick start, the dumb, beseeching 
terror in her eyes when he had unex- 
pectedly come upon her, and, above all, 
that last, heartrending cry of farewell 
when her arms had clung about him, 
were like a fierce stab of reminder, fill- 
ing him with a sense of guiltiness he 
found it impossible to subdue. 

So many things recalled her to him. 
Sometimes, as at the present moment, 
the swift picture came with the clear, 
ringing laugh from some fresh young 
voice passing in the streets. 

He rose and went to the window. 
Everything was still. Had he fallen 


312 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

asleep and dreamed of that ripple of 
mirth and sweetness that still mocked 
his ears? The room had grown hot 
and oppressive. His head ached as if 
bound by a tightening cord. He could 
not shake off the sense of utter misery 
that suddenly possessed him. Man-like, 
he began at once to combat the painful 
emotion. He put on his overcoat and 
hat and went out for a long walk into 
the country. 

The crisp, icy air seemed to clear his 
brain. Gradually his old elasticity of 
spirits began to assert itself. He met 
a few people he knew, and bowed to 
them cheerfully as he passed. Health 
was so vigorous, hope still so strong in 
him ; it seemed such a glorious good 
thing just to be allowed to walk the 
earth and to revel in the delight of 
mere living. In lieu of his former de- 
pression, an unnatural sort of buoyancy 
appeared to possess him, as if all his 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 313 


nerves were strained to some great an- 
ticipation. 

He was passing the post office. Per- 
haps there was a letter for him and that 
accounted for the feeling. If only she 
had written at last ! By this time she 
must have seen the magazine. He 
began to think of the scrap with a cer- 
tain feeling of complacency ; it seemed 
rather a pretty and poetic way of 
making her understand how his heart 
burned and ached and hungered for 
her, how absolutely he trusted her. Did 
she tremble when she read his message 
— a page that all the world might read, 
yet throbbing with love for her and fer- 
vid as if a coal from his altar fires had 
dropped upon the words and set them 
all aflame ? Did her cheeks glow with 
the triumph — did she shiver and grow 
pale, awed into a rapturous stillness 
through the mystery and the joy? 

He was right, there was a letter ; but 


314 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

it bore a foreign post-mark and the 
address was traced in a firm, even style 
more suggestive of a man’s than a 
woman’s handwriting. He thrust it 
into his pocket with a chill of disap- 
pointment and turned his steps home- 
ward, feeling as if he had met with a 
rebuff. 

But when he had reached his room, 
he experienced some curiosity regard- 
ing the author of the letter. He lit his 
lamp and sat down before the fire. 
The letter lay upon the little table at 
his side, the unfamiliar chirography 
challenging him to break the seal ; but 
he still delayed, a vague feeling of re- 
sentment possessing him as a reaction 
from his high anticipation. 

Presently, with an expression of in- 
different interest, he moodily tore open 
the envelope and began to read : 

“ Grand Hotel de Louvre, Paris, De- 
cember the twenty-ninth. ” His eye 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 315 


ran carelessly over the closely written 
page. 

Suddenly a ghastly pallor overspread 
his face ; he leaned forward that the 
light might fall to better advantage, 
but his hand shook so that he could not 
see the words. With a powerful effort 
of self-mastery he steadied himself and 
read on to the end. Then, like one 
who has received the death-wound in 
his heart, he put up his hand to his 
brow, bewildered, maddened with rage 
and torture, and with a groan his head 
fell forward on his breast. 

The letter ran : 

“ I know nothing I can ever say or do 
will make you believe that I suffer — 
horribly, and beyond the power of any 
words to express — in feeling myself 
under the necessity to write this letter. 
I realize that hereafter I shall always 
remain in your thoughts as an entirely 
heartless and calculating type of woman 


316 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

incapable of either sympathy or regret. 
But it is my very capacity to feel both 
that is the cause of your momentary 
unhappiness. This is not a paradox. 
The explanation of it all is to be found 
in the insufficiency of my own nature. 
The fault is in my weakness, not in any 
lack of strength in you ; for if you had 
not possessed almost the strength of a 
god, you would not have had power to 
hold me as you did against my inclina- 
tion, my better judgment, and in spite 
of my most strenuous effort to resist a 
fascination that seemed to exist for me 
from the first moment that our eyes 
met. I have not been insincere — I 
loved you — but away from you, in the 
long interval of reflection that your 
great generosity has allowed, I have dis- 
covered, fortunately for us both, before 
it was too late, that I did not love you 
enough. As a woman surrounded by 
the glamour of social place and the in- 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 317 


fluences of a life spent out in the world, 
because of the halo that your imagina- 
tion has thrown about me, I have 
offered, and possibly, if this environ- 
ment could be maintained, would con- 
tinue to offer something to you to ad- 
mire, for a time. As your wife, leading 
the prosaic life of the quiet village in 
which your lot seems to be cast, I 
should soon, too soon, in both your eyes 
and my own, lose what little charm I 
may ever have possessed. But a little 
more, and I might have overlooked all 
the difficulties that must appear ; but I 
have had my crucial test — the test I 
told you that I longed for — and my 
character stands at last revealed in its 
true light. Will you believe me when 
I tell you that I turn away shudder- 
ingly from myself? I do not think in 
all this great, sad world there is truly a 
more pitiable being than the one who 
is capable of conceiving and desiring a 


318 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

great affection and is yet unable to 
make the sacrifices for love’s sake that 
love demands. 

“ It is the highest, and the highest 
only, that you have dreamed of. Noth- 
ing else could ever satisfy you. And I 
believe, through that power of pre- 
science that seems to lend itself to cer- 
tain moments — I do believe, as surely as 
I am making you suffer to-day, that the 
time of your rejoicing is yet near at 
hand. But such love as I saw in that 
poor child’s eyes when she thought her- 
self to be dying is something that I can 
never give to you, nor to mortal man. 
To feel it, to be able to rise to one such 
moment of supreme elevation of soul as 
was hers; to know the thrill, the un- 
speakable joy of such self-forgetful- 
ness, I would be willing to walk until I 
was footsore and heart-weary to find 
the pure shrine of that high altar — and 
even death itself would not seem too 
great a price. 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 319 


“Farewell — I wish that my letter 
might have ended here. Will you 
loathe me, will you scorn me when you 
have read the rest ? 

“ I am here with my mother, in Paris, 
where we have been for the past six 
weeks, or more. I shall be married on 
the 3d of March to Mr. Edward Leeds 
Van Ousten, of New York City. 

“ Forgive — forget — 

“ Margaret Pryor.” 


XVI. 


Five months later, on a sultry June 
evening, Harvey Greer drifted casually 
into a New York theater ; but it was a 
momentary impulse, rather than a pre- 
meditated desire for light opera, that 
led him to turn, after passing the build- 
ing, and retrace his steps. It had sud- 
denly occurred to him that as good an 
opportunity as was likely to present it- 
self was thus afforded to cut short the 
morbid train of thought into which, in 
spite of every effort of will, he con- 
tinually reverted, when left to his own 
solitary companionship for an hour. 

He was greatly changed. The old 
boyish look of hope and zest was gone, 
vanished as completely as if years had 
passed over his head ; as if all the deep, 

( 320 ) 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 321 


tragical meaning of existence had un- 
folded itself to him, leaving, in the 
place of his joyous youth, only a spirit 
of stern resistance to fate. About the 
once carelessly happy mouth there were 
lines of bitterness and ineffectual strug- 
gle. He was pale and much thinner 
than heretofore. Although in his bear- 
ing there was still that air of distinc- 
tion that was essentially his, it seemed 
that the warmth had forever faded 
from his smile, and in his eyes there 
were depths, hard and inscrutable, as of 
one who broods continually upon a 
wrong. One would scarcely have 
known him for the same generous, 
sunny-hearted, and thoroughly charm- 
ing young man whose trustfulness of 
heart and grace of manner had won 
such hosts of friends. There was even 
something repellent in the austerity of 
his expression : so forbidding are the 
marks upon the human countenance of 

a grief rebelled against and defied. 

21 


322 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

When he had reached a seat he 
made a brief survey of the brilliantly 
lighted opera house, experiencing a 
sense of relief that, out of the hundreds 
of assembled faces, there appeared, at 
first glance, to be none familiar to him. 
But his circle of acquaintances was 
large, and as the new opera had met 
with considerable popularity with a 
certain set, after a moment he began to 
regret that he had selected this par- 
ticular theater ; some people he knew — 
friends at whose houses he had once 
visited — were coming into the boxes. 

His seat was an obscure one, and 
after the first knowledge of their pres- 
ence, he kept his eyes fixed steadily on 
the stage, conscious of a morose unwil- 
lingness to be observed. The sight of 
these people recalled painfully the cir- 
cumstances connected with his last most 
agreeable meeting with them just after 
landing in New York a year before, his 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 323 


feeling of hopefulness and enthusiasm, 
at that time, being brought into sharp 
contrast by a contemplation of the 
totally different emotions with which 
he would set sail for Europe on the 
following day for a three-month’s vaca- 
tion. 

The second act was about to be com- 
pleted; but the music had failed to 
interest him. With a yawn and a bored 
expression, he was deciding to take 
leave, when, as the curtain rang down, 
there was a slight stir among the audi- 
ence, like a wave of wind sweeping 
over a field of wheat bending it in one 
direction, and almost simultaneously 
every glass was leveled at a single 
point. Involuntarily, Harvey turned 
also. 

A short, stout young man with an 
auburn beard cut in the pointed fashion 
of the day, and with a manner some- 
what foreign and elaborate was bowing 


324 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

a graceful woman in diaphanous white 
into the farthest box on the right. 

The woman’s face was partly con- 
cealed on account of her position in the 
box, only her golden hair gleaming 
against the crimson curtain, and the 
stately poise of her head were visible 
to Harvey Greer, yet he started with a 
nameless fear, as his indifferent glance 
took in the scene. He felt the blood 
surge to his temples, a fierce, blinding 
stab at his heart. In another instant, 
with the air of a woman generously 
willing to bestow her loveliness upon 
all, Margaret slowly turned her face 
toward the audience, in a brilliant, lin- 
gering smile. 

From all sides there were whispers 
of rapturous admiration ; occasionally, 
Harvey could catch a word, a careless 
jest. Apparently the stage could offer 
nothing in rivalry to this glittering new 
beauty who it was evident had turned 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 325 


the heads of some of the most fastidi- 
ous with her charms. The box was 
rapidly filling-; men crowded around her 
from every direction, receiving each 
the same serene, but flattering welcome 
in acknowledgment of his homage. 
Thus surrounded, radiant with youth 
and happiness, one could almost won- 
der if those glowing eyes had ever 
known what it was to shed a tear, if the 
curves of those perfect lips had ever 
trembled at thought of the pain, the 
cruelty, the sorrow of the world. 

And seeing her thus, the beautiful, 
soulless creature that she was, all at 
once, as if the chains that her enchant- 
ment had woven about him had been 
suddenly broken, in a startling revela- 
tion to Harvey Greer there came a 
triumphant moment of release ! 

That one sight of her had done for 
him what, otherwise, years might not 
have accomplished. 


326 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

He sank back into his seat, his hands 
nervously clutching the sides of the 
chair, his face pale and rigid. 

Presently, for a certain effect, the 
lights throughout the entire building, 
with the exception of a feeble glimmer 
about the stage, were instantly lowered ; 
yet that faultless profile seemed to 
glisten like a star in the midst of 
encompassing gloom. He could not 
take his eyes away. But as he gazed, 
his heavy breaths coming stormily, his 
heart torn with powerful emotions, and 
his brain reeling from the shock, in a 
kind of savage elation the realization 
flashed unalterably upon him at last 
that it was before his own ideal he had 
worshiped — that immaculate vision of 
true womanhood that never could be 
dimmed — not her — not her! 

At the same moment, in one of those 
strange hallucinations which, under 
a great excitement, the mind finds 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 327 


not difficult to take for reality, there 
looked forth from behind the crim- 
son curtain another face, not less beau- 
tiful in its way, but purer, in that the 
soul that shone from the dark eyes 
was unspotted by the world, and infin- 
itely lovelier because of its suggestion 
of a boundless capacity to love and 
suffer — Dorinda’s face, fresh and dewy 
as a flower. 

As in a dream, he rose and left the 
theater. The sound of the orchestra 
was like the blare of a thousand brazen 
instruments in his ears. The sea of 
faces swam before his eyes. His brow 
felt scorched as if bound with flame. 

Out in the streets, under the silent 
stars, the heart of the great city seemed 
throbbing always with a ceaseless pain. 
A great wave of unselfish sorrow swept 
over him, a despairing sense of his own 
powerlessness to right the wrong, his 
utter weakness to comprehend. Gradu- 


328 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

ally, as the contemplation of the deeper 
mysteries of existence took stronger 
hold upon him, all that he himself had 
been called upon to endure began to 
sink into insignificance at the thought 
of the accumulated suffering that for 
ages upon ages had swept over the 
world. 

He walked for hours, feeling neither 
desolate nor alone, because of some 
wondrous uplifting power that had lent 
clearness to his vision, new strength to 
his purpose. 

In his pocket there was a letter, the 
familiar childish scrawl on the back 
of the envelope readily revealing the 
identity of the writer. In the haste of 
his preparations for to-morrow’s voyage, 
the little missive, received that after- 
noon, had as yet remained unopened. 
But Dorinda’s message of farewell had 
come to feel like a sentient, breathing 
thing as it pressed against his heart. 


' YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 329 


Soon his pulses began to bound with 
an almost painful intensity. Thoughts 
and recollections that heretofore he 
had pushed back from him, now came 
crowding upon him, overwhelming him 
in their confirmation of a joy beyond 
belief. A passion of tenderness, of re- 
morse for all that she must have suf- 
fered, an appalling realization of his 
own unworthiness shook him like the 
grasp from some mighty hand. 

He had reached the hotel. He hur- 
ried to his room, quickly turning on the 
lights. 

As he took the little envelope from 
his pocket, an awful foreboding and 
doubt assailed him. What change 
might those nine long months, since he 
last saw her, have wrought in her? If 
he should be making a mistake, after 
all! If it should be that she did not 
care! He well knew that, whatever 
she might write, between the lines 


330 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

there would be something — something 
that would betray her against her will. 

His hand trembled as he broke the 
seal. A heavy moisture had gathered 
upon his brow. The room whirled 
and swayed before him. Every nerve 
seemed strained. He opened the en- 
velope. 

There were only a few short sen- 
tences, but as his glance fell upon them, 
he started and grew pale — as if terri- 
fied at his own happiness. The paper 
fluttered from his grasp, and he bowed 
his face in his hands. 

“Good bye, dear,” she wrote, ’’good 
bye ! ” unconsciously using the very 
words that had been wrung from her 
heart that night when she thought she 
was bidding him an eternal farewell. 

The night wind stole in at the win- 
dows and stirred the hair about the 
young man’s temples, reminding him 


YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 331 


in some vague, delicious fashion, of the 
silken rustle among the trees near his 
bed-room in his old home in Kentucky. 
But in the deep thankfulness that pos- 
sessed him — a thankfulness for what 
had been withheld as well as given, 
there was little room for other 
thought. 

Presently he lifted his face, trans- 
figured by a marvelous light. His lips 
parted, moved, yet uttered not a sound, 
as there rose from the uttermost depths 
of his soul a wordless prayer — the pro- 
foundest of all worship. 

Some moments afterward, something 
in the disorder of the room — his trunks 
half-packed for the voyage on the mor- 
row — caught his eye with a special sig- 
nificance. A sudden warmth over- 
spread his face. His heart throbbed in 
its excess of joy. He arose and turned 
out the lights, that he might be alone 
with the sacredness of his own thoughts. 


332 YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. 

For he knew that on the morrow the 
steamer would sail without him. 


THE END. 



Rand, McNally & Co.’s Miscellaneous Publications 


THE LIGHT OF ASIA. 

By Sir Edwin Arnold, with exhaustive notes by Mrs. I. L. 
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A task which, when one thinks of it, one must wonder was not un- 
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JOURNAL OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF. 


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Worth the attention of all thoughtful readers.— Kansas City Times. 
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Dr. Rameau. By Georges Ohnet. Illustrated. 

Merze. By Marah Ellis Ryan. Illustrated. 

My Uncle Barbassou. By Mario Uchard. Illustrated. 

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Danesbury House. By Mrs. Henry Wood. 

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MARAH ELLIS RYAN’S WORKS 


A FLOWER OF FRANCE. 

/ A Story of Old Louisian a. 

The story is well told .— Herald, New York. 

A real romance — just the kind of romance one delights in. — Times , Boston. 

Full of stirring incident and picturesque description. — Press , Philadelphia. 

The interest holds the reader until the closing page— Inter Ocean , Chicago. 

Told with great fascination and brightness. * * * The general impression 
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A thrilling story of passion and action.— Commercial , Memphis. 

A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 

A genuine art work.— Chicago Tribune. 

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noble in tone. — Boston Literai'y World. 

REV. DAVID SWING says: —The books of Marah Ellis Ryan give great 
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one of her best works; but all she writes is high and pure. Her words are all 
true to nature, and, with her, nature is a great theme. 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL says: — Your description of scenery and seasons 
— of the capture of the mountains by spring— of tree and fern, of laurel, 
cloud and mist, and the woods of the forest, are true, poetic, and beautiful. 
To say the least, the pagan saw and appreciated many of the difficulties and 
contradictions that grow out of and belong to creeds. He saw how hard it is 
to harmonize what we see and know with the idea that over all is infinite 
power and goodness. * * * the divine spark called Genius, is in your brain. 

SQUAW ELOUISE. 

Vigorous, natural, entertaining.— Boston Times. 

A notable performance. — Chicago Tribune. 

A very strong story, indeed.— Chicago Times. 

TOLD IN THE HILLS. 

A book that is more than clever. It is healthy, brave, and inspiring.— St. 
Louis Post- Dispatch. 

The character of Stuart is one of the finest which has been drawn by an 
American woman in many a day, and it is depicted with an appreciation 
hardly to be expected even from a man. — Boston Herald. 

IN LOVE’S DOMAINS. 

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will find them interesting. — New York Sun. 

The longest story, “Galeed,” is a strong, nervous story, covering a wide 
ran^e, and dealing in a masterly way with some intricate questions of what 
might be termed amatory psychology.— San Francisco Chronicle . 

MERZE; The Story of an Actress. 

We can not doubt that the author is one of the best living orators of her 
sex. The book will possess a strong attraction for women .—Chicago Herald. 

This is the story of the life of an actress, told in the graphic style of Mrs. 
Ryan. It is very interesting.— JVew Orleans Picayune. 


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